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AN 



OEFEEING OP SYMPATHY 



ijie Slfflittei).: 



ESPECIALLY 



TO BEREAYED PARENTS. 



BY 



;nX 



/or'COPYRtaHT''^^' 



FRANCIS^ARKMA]^Hii>-3arCr'^ 



BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE : 

JAMES MUNEOE AND COMPANY, 

MDCCCLIV. 






oo 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 

James Munroe & Co. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



The Library 

of congrrss 

washington 



THURSTON AND TORRY. PRINTERS. 



\ 



<5^ 



TO 



E\)t jFrfentrs, 



WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THESE PAGES ; 



AND TO 



33ereabetr J^arents, 



FOR WTEOSE SOLACE THEY ARE ESPECIALLY DESIGNED, 



THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY 



A PARENT 



They are not lost, 
Who leave their parents for the calm of Heaven. 



, CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Introduction ix 

Editor's Note . vv 

Memoir xvii 

Duty of Preparation for Adversity. 

F. Parkman. .... 1 

Eesignation to the Divine Will, (two parts.) 

F. Parkman. . . . . 9 

Sufferings and Death of Children consistent with the Di- 
vine Goodness. E. S. Gannett. . . . . 17 

Consolations under the Death of Children. 

A. Lamson . . . . 25 

Resignation. H. W. Lon&fellow. ... 29 

Re-union of the Virtuous in a State of Happiness after 
Death. . F. W. P. Greenwood.. . . 31 

Christ's Legacy to his Disciples. 

George Ripley 41 

Fragments. m******. .... 45 

Letter to a Sister after a severe bereavement. 

H***. . . . . . 47 

Letter from a Father to his Daughter after the death of 
a lovely Boy. J. B****** 50 

Reflections on visiting the Grave of a Child. 

W. B. O. Peabody. ... 54 

Lines written after visiting the Grave of her Child. By 
the late Harriet Ware Hall. . . 60 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page. 



The Christian's Solace, under the loss of Virtuous Friends. 
George Ripley. 

Jesus Christ, the true Source of Consolation. 

A. Young. . . . 

'* Jesus Wept." Margaret St. Leon Loud. 

The Improvement to be derived from Examples of Sud- 
den Death. W. E. Channing. . 

The Christian's Victory over Death. 

J. Walker 

The Occasions and Remedy of excessive Grief. 
F. Parkman. 

The Contemplation of Nature, a Source of Consolation. 
F. W. P. Greenwood. 

The Duty of Gratitude amidst Sorrow. 
F. Parkman. 

'* Thou sleepest, but we will not regret thee." 
Anonymous. . . 

The Influence of the Dead on the Living. 

A. Young. .... 

The Efficacy of Religious Consolation. 

W. H. FURNESS. 

Man's Will conformed to God's Will. 

M. L MOTTE. 

A Letter to a Friend under deep Affliction. 

J. Allen. .... 

The Dangers and Temptations of Adversity. 
F. Parkman. 

Uses of Affliction. J. Brazer 

Light from Darkness, and Life in Death. 

E. B. Hall. 

The Spirit's Song of Consolation. 

F. W. P. Greenwood. . 

The Early Dead. F. A. Farley. 
The Christian's Immortality. 

S. Gilman 



62 

68 
74 



84 

92 

99 

102 

110 

112 

120 

124 

130 

133 
143 

152 

160 
162 

170 



CONTENTS. 


Vll 


The Blessedness of Sorrow. 

H. W. Bellows. . , . 


Page. 
. 176 


My Child. J. PiEHPOifT. 


. 181 


Suffering Inevitable. 

0. Dewey. 


. 183 


The Living and the Dead. 

F. D. Huntington. 


. 190 


*^ She is not dead, but sleepeth." 

W. H. FURNESS. . 


. 194 


Where are the Dead. 

J. Parkman. 


. 195 


Blossoms from the Grave of Childhood. 
F. H. Hed&e. 


. 200 


Our relation to the Spiritual World. 
S. Osgood. 


. 202 


Extract. Alford. 


. 207 


Blessedness of a Child-like Faith. 

S. Longfellow. 


. . 208 



Forgotten ! an Extract. 

Charles Dickens. . . .211 

Letter of Sir William Temple to Lady Essex. . . 213 
A Christian Mother, on the Death of a darling Child. 

R. Wardlaw 215 

Part of a discourse by W. B. 0. Peabodt. . . . 218 

Letter of Rev. Dr. Balfour, of Glasgow, on the Death of 
his only Son . .223 

Extract from a Sermon of Rev. Dr. Barnes, after the 
Funeral of his only Daughter 227 

Speech of the Rev. Samuel Danforth, at the Grave oi 
three of his Children 229 

Extracts from the Life and Character of James Hay Beat- 
tie, by his Father 233 

The Springs of Comfort opened in the Gospel. By J. 
Thornton. 236 



VIU CONTENTS. 

Page. 
To a Dying Infant. • . . . . . .238 

Examples of Suffering. . ^ 240 

Letter to Sir Walter Scott, on the Death of the Duchess 
of Buccleuch, by her husband. .... 243 

A Letter on the Death of a favorite Daughter. . . 246 

To H , on the Death of ayoung Chilci ... 250 

Extract from Kev. R. Morehead's Discourse on Religious 
Consolation 252 

To William, by his Father. 

W. B. 0. Peabodt. ... 256 
Extract from W. E. O. Peabody's Sermon after his Daugh- 
ter's Death 259 



INTRODUCTION. 

In offering this little bookfor the consolation of the 
afflicted, the compiler wishes to contribute something 
to the supply of a want, that has been much felt 
among us. The children of sorrow are at all times a 
numerous class of mankind. It pleases God that they 
should always be with us ; and we ourselves must in 
our turn, become a part. Notwithstanding the many 
valuable treatises on other subjects of religion, both 
the experience of ministers, in their offices of conso- 
lation, and the personal trials of all Christians, suffi- 
ciently attest the need there yet exists, of works which 
may meet the various conditions of sorrow, and yield 
the instruction and comforts they require. 

It will at once be perceived, how largely the writer 
has been indebted to the contributions of others. 
These form the greatest and most valuable part of 
the work. And were he at liberty to explain the 
sources, whence some passages, particularly, of the 
*^ Correspondence,'' were derived, or the nature' and 
variety of the grief, for the relief of which others of 
these . pieces were expressly written, he doubts not, 
that independently of their intrinsic value, they would 
command the lively interest of the reader. He can 
only express his grateful acknowledgments to each 



X INTRODUCTION. 

and to all of those friends, who have so efiectually 
aided his design, either by their own productions, or 
from those private stores, which sympathy in their 
bereavements had enabled them to gather ; and from 
which, in the kindness ever found in the bosom of 
sanctified affliction, they were willing to comfort others 
with the same comforts, with which they themselves 
had been comforted of God. 

As may be inferred from the variety of the topics 
here treated, these pages are designed, and it is hoped 
•they may not be found unsuited, for the consolation of 
all sorrow. Yet there will be perceived a particular 
reference to that grief which is suffered by parents 
under the loss of children. Of the trials of domestic 
life, appointed of our heavenly Father, none are of 
■more frequent occurrence,* and none, perhaps, cause a 
more poignant sorrow, than does this. " I have lost 
my children, and am desolate,^' is the natural language 
of bereaved paternal affection. When the infant, that 
had lately entered upon existence, or the lovely child, 
whose powers were just unfolding, 

** Sweet to the world and grateful to the skies," 

in the fulness of health, in the sweetness of innocence, 
and the freshness of hope, is at a moment taken from 
us, who shall utter the sorrow, especially of the ma- 
ternal heart ? Yet, heavy as it is, it must be borne for 
the most part in silence. The stranger knows not of 
it. The acquaintance cannot intermeddle with it ; 
and even in the confidence of tender friendship, it 
may not be wise often to intrude it. It is to be en- 
dured, therefore, rather than to be uttered, except to 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

Him, whose ear is always open ; whose pitying eye is 
upon his children, and who counts their tears. 

From the frequency, moreover, and sometimes the 
wide extent of such calamities, no less than from the 
private nature of the sorrow they occasion, they can 
seldom be made the direct topics of consolation from 
the pulpit. The reasons are obvious, and they are 
sufficient. Such subjects would be in danger of 
engrossing a disproportionate share of the public in- 
struction ; and it were unreasonable to call upon the 
sympathies of a promiscuous assembly for that, which 
of necessity could be felt only by a few. Hence, the 
greater need of books of consolation, which may meet 
the private grief ; which may go with us, as a chosen 
friend, into the secret chamber ; may cheer the heavy 
hours of solitude, to which even those most richly 
favored of Christian friendship, will, at such periods, 
be left ; and like the unfailing word, whose " entrance 
giveth light," and is itself the exhaustless source of 
comfort, may remain to cheer and to instruct, long 
after the offerings, and with them the excitements of 
sympathy, have ceased ; and when even our nearest 
friends may be imagining, that the grief, they were 
at first eager and assiduous to console, has passed 
away. 

Of the compilations of this class, which have 
already been furnished, few appear altogether adapted 
to their purpose. The office of consolation is, in 
truth, one of difficulty ; and though always welcomed 
from the kind and good, and its simplest expressions, 
if only uttered in sincerity, will not fail of their inten- 
tion, yet, for the most acceptable performance of it, 



XU INTRODUCTION. 

something more is needed than earnest or good feel- 
ing. A respectful regard for the afflicted ; a certain 
reverence of sorrow, forbidding the intrusion of what 
is doubtful, or might be the occasion of pain, is essen- 
tial to him, who would impart comfort. The friends 
of Job, though too ready to reproach him, gave one 
evidence, at least, of a genuine sympathy, when they 
sat down with him for a season in silence, " and spake 
not a word, knowing that his grief was great." Now, 
in many of the treatises, usually referred to on this 
subject, we perceive a lamentable deficiency in that 
spirit, which in the more familiar expressions of con- 
dolence, would prescribe a like deference. In some 
of them we find a coarseness, in others a quaintness 
of language, which are offensive ; while the most sim- 
ple and sustaining views of God's paternal providence, 
of his merciful designs, and some of the choicest con- 
solations which spring from the religion of Christ, are 
as strangely overlooked. 

To the original pieces, of which this little work is 
composed, are added a few passages, chiefly from 
writers of celebrity, and composed either under cir- 
cumstances of severe personal affliction, or for the 
consolation of their friends in bereavement. The 
number of such selections might be greatly extended. 
In the few however to which the compiler has prefer- 
red to confine himself, he is happy in uniting the 
names of authors, whose speculations on other subjects 
might widely differ from each other and his own ; not 
only as the passages in themselves will be found unex- 
ceptionable — most of them indeed are entitled to a 
higher character — but as a pleasing evidence, that in 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

the sacred offices of consolation, as in any work of 
practical utility, Christians of different names and 
parties may cordially unite. In casting his eye over 
the collections which, however defective, have been 
made for this purpose, he could not but perceive, how 
little have the subjects of a disputed theology to do 
with the work of consolation ; how much they are 
overlooked, even by those who on other points would 
deem it necessary to press them as essential to an ac- 
ceptable faith. The beautiful little piece by Dr. Ward- 
law, of Edinburgh, after the death of his child, and 
the truly Christian letter of Dr. Balfour, a late eminent 
clergyman of Glasgow — for both of which the writer 
is indebted to the kindness of a friend — with the ad- 
dress of Mr. Danforth to his flock after the loss of 
three of his children, may be taken as an evidence, if 
any such were wanted, that when the heart is truly 
touched, and the best affections are in their genuine 
exercise, the doubtful things of religion are involun- 
tarily forgotten. And through the '^ darkness and the 
shadows," that rest upon them, the soul of the afflicted 
and the spirit of the "son of consolation," whatever 
may be their diversities of speculation, ascend to- 
gether and at once to the pure heaven of truth, even 
to those grand but simple principles, which it is the 
glory of the gospel to reveal ; and which, to ev^ry 
sincere believer and ever37- submissive sufferer, are 
their only assurance of the hope full of immortality. 
Of such truths as these, — the paternal character of 
God, and of his perfect providence ; the mission of 
Christ Jesus as the resurrection and the life ; and the 



XIV INTROBXJCTION. 

glorious doctrine of immortality, — we may say as did 
the earnest disciple to his Lord, in words already 
illustrated : " To whom shall we go ? Thou hast the 
words of eternal life." 

With the belief, that works of this description are 
yet needed among us, and with a desire to meet, in 
some measure, a want, which the course of profes- 
sional duty had shown to be urgent, the writer presents 
this little volume to the bereaved and afflicted. Pos- 
sibly it may add something to a confidence, essential 
to the efficacy of the sympathy it expresses ; at least, 
it may obtain indulgence for those portions of the book, 
which alone will need it, if he add, that it was sug- 
gested by a severe domestic calamity, by which a very 
lovely child, in full health and promise, was suddenly 
taken away. He will be happy, if a private grief 
shall have thus ministered to the consolation of others ; 
if a little child, who had become the object, perhaps 
of a too fond dependence, shall, by the grief of her 
early departure, have taught him more effectually how 
to sympathize with the sorrowful. 



EDITOR'S. NOTE. 

In preparing a new, revised, and somewhat enlarged 
edition of the '' Gifering of Sympathy," the under- 
signed has been chiefly prompted by his own pastoral 
experience of the adaptation of the work, to the office 
for which it was originally designed by its compiler. 
With the hope, however, of increasing its value, he 
has drawn upon several of his professional brethren, 
whose names were not among those of the original 
writers, for contributions ; and a comparison of this 
with the last edition published in Dr. Parkman's life- 
time, will show how amply and promptly those drafts 
were honored. He has, besides, ventured to omit 
the first eighteen pages of the ** appendix" as then 
printed ; and to incorporate the remainder of the 
"appendix" with the work itself. A brief memoir of 
Dr. Parkman is prefixed ; and a few selected pieces of 
poetry, recommended by their fitness and beauty, are 
also interspersed among the prose articles. 

He would add, that this revision has been truly a 
labor of love. Understanding from the publishers 
that the book was out of print, he gladly consented to 
superintend a new edition. 



xvi editor's note. 

The sudden and dreadful death of Dr. Parkman's 
infant — many years ago burned to death in her 
crib — first suggested, as he tells us in his Intro- 
duction, the preparation of this unpretending volume ; 
and probably " taught him more effectually how to 
sympathize with the sorrowful." His editor has ex- 
perienced, if not in the same form, a bereavement at 
least as severe, in the death of a daughter in the 
bloom of a most lovely childhood. The years that 
have since flown, while they have not in the least 
obliterated her dear image from his memory or his 
heart, have softened and hallowed the sorrow ; and, 
with no wish to recall, but a constant prayer to be 
made fit to rejoin her sainted spirit, he is thankful to 
find the desire and aim in his ministry stronger and 
stronger ''to comfort those that mourn" — to lead' 
them, as in these pages, to some useful trains of 
thought, which with the Bible — the Book of Books, 
and the blessing of our HeavenlyFather, may help to 
** justify the ways of God to man,'' and give peace to 
the stricken soul. 

FREDERICK A. FARLEY. 

Brooklyn, N, Y., July, 1854. 



MEMOIR. 

Francis Parkman was born in Boston, Massachu- 
setts, on the 4th of June, 1788 ; graduated at Harvard 
University, Cambridge, at the annual commencement 
in 1807 ; after entering on a course of theological 
study, with the lamented Channing, finished it at the 
University of Edinburgh ; was ordained Pastor of the 
new North Church in his native city in 1813; and 
retaining his pastoral connection with it till 1849, 
having for seven years previously had a colleague, 
he then resigned his charge. In the year 1834, his 
Alma Mater^ to whom he was always a faithful and 
liberal son, conferred on him the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Divinity. 

Dr. Parkman was the son of Samuel Parkman, one 
of the most eminent and prosperous merchants of 
Boston. Inheriting thus an ample fortune, no man 
of his day exercised a larger or more discriminating 
benevolence. Every association in his native State 
and city, devoted to the cause of humanity, if based on 
a broad and Catholic platform, found in him a liberal 
patron, and in very many cases an active officer and 
fellow-laborer. He was no more sparing of his time 
than his money in their behalf; and was sure to be 
most scrupulously faithful to any trust or duty which 
b 



XVIU MEMOIR. 

they devolved on him. Bat not to organized associa- 
tions only, was he thus liberal. Individuals and families 
were living in large numbers at the time of his death, 
November 12, 1852, who would have borne glad 
witness to the free-hearted sympathy and generosity 
with which he had ever entered into and watched 
over their wants ; bestowing on them wise counsel, 
helping them to independent efforts for their self- 
support, ministering liberally and personally to their 
pecuniary needs in their seasons of sickness, infirmity, 
and old age, and in all ways showing by his friendly 
and Christian offices, how well he understood and 
could practice upon the spirit of that religion, which 
he had so long and faithfully preached. 

In his profession he was universally respected and 
beloved for his sterling qualities of heart and head, 
and his active and devoted faithfulness to his Master^s 
work. That profession was his free and glad choice. 
For twenty-nine years, no man could have been more 
diligent in its duties ; and during the seven additional 
years when he enjoyed the aid of a colleague in the 
ministry, he still took a full share of them as the 
senior pastor. Dr. Parkman was not a great, but 
always a sensible and useful preacher. His style was 
eminently and richly scriptural, and his tone of thought 
elevated and pure. His prayers were strongly marked 
by a familiar, and at the same time apt and graceful 
use of the language and allusions of Holy writ, uttered 
with an unction and fervor, and withal a touching 
simplicity, which lifted the heart of the worshipper 
into the purest atmosphere of devotion. He knew and 



MEMOIR. XIX 

could express most felicitously in his approach to the 
throne of Grace, through his ready sympathies and his 
profound religious sensibilities, the desires and the 
petitions of a multitude of hearts. 

Everything, indeed, which could promote the use- 
fulness and efficiency of the sacred profession, was 
near his heart. He was always interested in its 
younger members, and in those engaged in its pre- 
paratory studies. So long ago as 1829, he founded 
the Professorship of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral 
Care in the Theological Department of Harvard; of 
the chair of. which, his friend, the estimable Henry 
Ware, Jr., was for thirteen years the first incumbent. 
And when the Society for the Relief of Aged and 
Indigent Unitarian Clergymen was founded, in the 
year 1849, he took an active part in its concerns, 
bestowed on it his bounty, and remained its first Vice- 
President to the day of his death. 

To the periodical literature of the Unitarian body, to 
which he belonged. Dr. Parkman for more than thirty 
years largely contributed : but the present volume is 
the only detached work which he published. How 
many hearts it has comforted, to how many more 
it is to go as an angel of consolation and of sympa- 
thy, and bring down a blessing on his labors and 
memory, is known only to God ; who often blesses 
the humblest instruments to the achievement of an 
incalculable amount of good service in the cause of 
human virtue, of truth, and of benevolence. 

Few meri made more friends among all classes 
than Dr. Parkman, for his heart was full of every 



XX MEMOIR. 

kind and genial impulse. He was frank and warm 
in his manners, and a finished Christian Gentleman ; 
his home was the abode of the most generous hos- 
pitality; he had a quick and delicate sensibility for 
the feelings of the humble and the unfortunate ; he 
knew as well as though he had gone through their 
whole experience of suffering, just what was wanted 
in word or in deed ; and therefore, while with a well- 
remembered quaint but native humor he was a most 
delightful companion to the happy, he was equally 
welcome to the disappointed and the sorrowing through 
his prompt and cheerful sympathy. 

It is recorded that his last sermon, preached in his 
native city, was *' On being kind and tender-hearted." 
Who better qualified, more authorized than he, to 
have advocated and urged such a duty, to have illus- 
trated the joy and the glory and the beneficence of 
such a disposition? Now that he has gone to his 
reward, it would seem no presumption to believe, 
that his welcome, as his spirit passed within the veil, 
must have been in the very words of the Saviour to 
those on the right hand of the throne. 

F. A. F. 



SYMPATHY TO THE AFFLICTED. 



DUTY OF PREPARATION FOR ADVERSITY. 

Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us, arm yourselves likewise with 

the same mind. 

It is the province of religion to prepare us for the 
vicissitudes of life. It is the peculiar province of the 
religion of Jesus Christ to inculcate such truths, to 
suggest such motives, to inspire such hopes, as shall 
prepare us to meet all the appointments of God— both 
what he ordains, and what he permits — with a con- 
fiding temper. For this, as well as for other great 
purposes, it holds up to our view and imitation the 
example of Christ, in the faithfulness of his obedience, 
and the cheerfulness of his submission to the will of 
his Father. And one of his apostles, in anticipating 
the sufferings to which his first followers, and, we may- 
add, his disciples in every age, were to be called, ex- 
horts that they arm themselves with the same mind ; 
that they put on the same holy courage, with which 
their divine Master met the trials to which he was ap- 
pointed. St. Paul also, with a fine allusion to the 
1 



2 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Christian state as a warfare, exhorts that they put on 
the whole armor of God ; that they place themselves, 
as it were, in the attitude of men, who expected and 
would prepare themselves to meet calamity ; standing 
perfect and complete in all the will of God. 

These precepts, though addressed to Christians of 
an earlier age, lose nothing of their application to us, 
who, with them, are pilgrims in an uncertain world, 
and must expect vicissitude. And it is obviously the 
suggestion of wisdom and piety, to inquire, how we 
may prepare ourselves for such changes, and with 
what temper they should be sustained. 

1. Preparation for sorrow implies, as we may first 
remark, a reasonable expectation of it ; — an expecta- 
tion founded on just views, such as reason, observation, 
experience, and the word of God enforce, of the un- 
certainty of our condition here ; of the frailty of our 
possessions, and of our lives ; of the designs of God 
concerning us in this world, and of the influence of 
adversity to prepare us for a better. He, who con- 
siders his feeble frame ; the diseases and accidents to 
which he is liable ; the narrow term, within the bounds 
of which the longest life is limited ; the uncertainties 
to which the securest possessions are exposed ; who 
looks around the community in which he lives, and 
marks the ravages that a few years can make upon the 
comforts, treasures, and friendships, even of the most 
prosperous ; who sees one generation passing away, 
and the places that knew his friends knowing them no 
more ; the domestic abode changing its inhabitants ; 
families, once numerous and opulent, flourishing in 
peace and honor, utterly gone, or reduced to a few 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 3 

individuals, that survive to a comfortless dependence ; 
their splendid mansions, once the abode of pleasure, 
the seat of generous hospitality, and the refuge of the 
needy, laid in melancholy ruins, or transformed into 
resorts of business, or as resting places of the travel- 
ler ; when he visits the house of God, and with a few 
annual revolutions observes what new appearances are 
presented, and looks in vain for faces he had long 
known and welcomed there — when, I say, he con- 
siders all this, he will think it reasonable to expect 
change. He will not flatter himself that he is to be 
exempted ; nor vainly imagine that his mountain will 
stand, while all things else are moving. He will per- 
ceive, that the principle of change is inherent in the 
very nature and condition of his being. The whole 
history of the community in which he lives, all that he 
is called to observe or suffer, will conspire with the 
clear monitions of God's word, to teach him that 
preparation for sorrow is the part of wisdom ; that 
however bright may be his prospects, however large, 
and, to the earthly eye, secure his possessions, how- 
ever sacred and endearing the relations by which he 
is united, he must not hope for exemption. Nay, that 
in proportion to the variety and extent of his comforts, 
to the number of the friends on whom his heart relies, 
is his exposure to change. 

2. This duty of preparation for the loss of our 
blessings demands from us also a faithful improvement 
of them, while they are continued. The thought of 
their uncertain stay, and that at any moment they may 
be withdrawn, will mingle itself with our uses of them, 
and will moderate also our expectations concerning 



4 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

them. We shall not fail to enjoy them, for this is 
demanded from our gratitude. This is the clear dic- 
tate of duty ; and it is no part of the Christian, who 
believes in God, and believes also in Christ, trusts in a 
perfect Providence, and has a hope full of immortality, 
to go "sorrowing all his days." But he will improve 
them, as one who remembers that this is not the scene 
of enjoyment, or of rest ; that it is in the world to 
come, not that in which he lives, that he must look for 
the fullest gratifications of his affections, and for his 
highest pleasures. 

Who of us, but may have suffered some pangs of 
regret, when a gift has been taken from us, that we 
have prized it so little, or so negligently improved it ? 
It is one of the most common evidences of our way- 
ward dispositions, to think little of the good we possess, 
and much of that we have lost. Our blessings rise in 
our estimation, as they are departing from us ; and 
when once they are gone, memory and fancy recall, 
with a perverse fidelity, all that there was in them for 
our gratitude and enjoyment. We value highly the 
opportunities of usefulness, or the means of happiness, 
which we can no longer command. We think ten- 
derly of the scenes, from which we are removing; and 
especially, if we are to quit them, as we think, for 
ever, how fondly and sadly do we number the days of 
comfort and delight we have spent in them ! The 
most indifferent objects of inanimate nature array 
themselves to our busy, our diseased imaginations, in 
unwonted beauties. And we can then understand what 
was meant by the captive Israelites, when mourning 
in a strange and distant country, over the desolations 



TO THE AFFLICTED. O 

of their temple — " Thy servants take pleasure in its 
stones ; and favor the dust thereof." 

Particularly of the friendships and endeared con- 
nections of life, when absence interrupts, or death is 
commissioned to sever — how tender, how sacred, the 
recollections ! We dwell with mournful veneration on 
the lips, that are soon to be silenced in the grave. We 
summon all that love and gratitude can suggest, to 
heighten our esteem of the friend we had enjoyed, but 
can enjoy no longer. 

Now it is the part of wisdom, it is essential to our 
preparation for the day of calamity, to be faithful to 
our blessings, while yet they are with us. It is wise 
to protect ourselves from unavailing sorrows, and 
the reproach of undervalued or neglected privileges. 
Christian, hath God imparted to thee of the fulness 
of his bounty ? Hath he intrusted thee with wealth, 
and made thee responsible, by placing at thy disposal 
the resources of happiness ? Then must thou act as 
his steward, and employ thy treasure and opportunity 
to his glory ; then must there be with thee the spirit of 
moderation, and the heavenly mind, to control and 
sanctify thy use of things temporal, " lest thy table be 
a snare, and that which God gave for thy welfare, bB- 
come a trap." 

Are you blest, my brother, in the friends of your 
heart ? Are there yet with you, those, and perhaps 
not a few, whom your soul loveth ? Are you walking 
in the light, and are still gladdened by the presence of 
a venerated parent, in the wisdom of whose counsel, 
in the purity and integrity of whose life, in whose 
tried and faithful aifection, you can securely trust ? 



b AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Is It yet with you as in the days of your youth, when 
the secret of God was upon your tabernacle ? And 
the wife of your bosom, and the children of your 
hopes — are they about you ? Then may you rejoice 
— yea, and you should rejoice. Only remember, that 
at the word of God, these choicest of your temporal 
blessings may be withdrawn. And so live with your 
friends, as heirs of the grace of life, that when they 
are gone, you may call up their memories without dis- 
tress ; and find them hereafter with the treasure laid 
up in heaven. 

3. Another most important preparation fo!r the ca- 
lamities which may be appointed, is in the faithful 
discharge of duty, and in the answer of a good con- 
science. *' It is better,*' says an apostle, " that ye 
suffer in well-doing than for evil-doing.'' In the 
strength of an approving conscience we can meet with 
composure the chastisements of God ; and in the light 
of an approving conscience we can see the mercy that 
is mingled with judgment. But wretched indeed is 
that man, who is compelled to endure at once the 
rebukes of heaven, and the upbraidings of a heart not 
right with God. The spirit of a man, we are told, 
will sustain his infirmity. The natural vigor and 
courage of his soul, sustained by religious faith, may 
avail him under the ordinary trials of his lot. " But 
if," as observes a wise interpreter of that text, " within 
him the disease of sin be rankling ; if that which 
should support, serves but to torment him, to what 
quarter can he look for relief? To what medicine 
shall he apply, when that which might have cured his 
wounds is itself diseased and wounded ? " 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 7 

Besides, let it not be forgotten, that it is one effect 
of adversity to awaken the conscience ; to give tender- 
ness and susceptibility to the moral feelings. The 
palliatives we may administer in the day of prosperity 
may prove successful. They may soothe us for a 
season. They may silence the clamors of self- 
reproach. It is possible, that amidst the engagements 
of business or the allurements of pleasure, the festive 
scenes of youth or the more sober passions and en- 
grossing cares of advancing life, the monitor within 
may never be heard. But let God speak the word, 
and commission his ministers of justice ; let the sinner 
be stripped of the riches, in which he had trusted ; let 
pain and disease rack his frame, and thus teach him 
that he is mortal, and shall die ; let death enter his 
dwelling, and bear from him one, and perhaps another, 
in whom he had trusted, and convince him by his own 
personal sufferings of the vanity of his best posses- 
sions ; and then, if amidst all or any of these visita- 
tions from heaven, conscience is inflicting also its 
secret torments — miserable indeed is that man. 

If then we would fortify ourselves against the day 
of trouble, and secure, when we shall most need them, 
the strength and solace of religion, we must keep to 
ourselves the answer of a good conscience ; and be 
able, amidst all care and grief, to say — "Our re- 
joicing is this : that in simplicity and sincerity we have 
lived in the world." " Behold, now, my witness is in 
heaven, and my record with the Most High." 

4. A just estimate also of the objects of this world, 
and of those especially which are usually regarded as 
essential to happiness, will assist us to meet its trials. 



8 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

The conviction too of our ignorance of what is best 
for us, and a filial readiness to commit to the " only 
wise God " all our lot, will fortify our spirits. Know- 
ing, as the apostle teaches, that the things that are 
seen are temporal, we shall lift our eyes and our hearts 
to the things eternal. In the faith and hopes of a true 
disciple, we shall look for strength amidst weakness, 
and for the solace of our griefs, to that better country, 
where nothing is transient ; even to the city that hath 
foundations, whose builder and whose maker is God. 

5. And lastly, w^e may effectually arm ourselves 
against every evil that can assail us here, by an un- 
qualified trust in God ; by the conviction that all which 
he ordains is wise and kind ; and that nothing is per- 
mitted, or can take place under his control, that shall 
not work for good, to them that love him. For all 
the ways of God are mercy and truth to them that 
fear him. Light is sown for the righteous, and glad- 
ness for the upright in heart. To the faithful children 
of the Most High, who endure and suffer well, there 
is given by Christ Jesus the assurance of faith, that 
what they know not now, they shall know hereafter ; 
that this God, of whom the Son has taught them, shall 
be their guide, even unto death. Nor will he leave 
them there. His rod and staff will be with them 
through the dark valley ; and through the ages of 
eternity, he will be their salvation and joy. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 



RESIGNATION TO THE DIVINE WILL. 

It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. 

This is the language of resignation. In these 
words of the prophet, we may mark the temper with 
which every child of God must prepare himself to 
meet the appointments of his heavenly Father. To 
ordain, to bestow, and to chasten, is the prerogative of 
God. To obey, to receive, to submit, is the duty of 
man. The sovereign arbiter of our lot. the God who 
formed and fashioned us, holds an undeniable claim 
upon our blessings and hopes. Nor is it more of the 
glory of his bounty to give, than it is of the faithful- 
ness of his judgments to take away. This is a lesson 
which sooner or later we must learn ; and never shall 
we have found the true source of comfort, nor peace 
to our souls, amidst the disquietudes of life, till we 
have acquired this spirit of unreserved submission ; 
till with a filial temper we can look upon ourselves, 
our friends, our best possessions, and most cherished 
hopes, and then look upward to the God of heaven, 
whose bounty gave them all, and say, ''Lord, here are 
we : — Let him do with us as it seemeth good unto 
him.' 



10 AN' OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Resignation is submission without a murmur to the 
will of God ; the yielding of our blessings at his call. 
It is not indifference or insensibility, but acquiescence 
to what we know and feel to be an evil, simply because 
it is his holy pleasure. It is, therefore, a sentiment at 
once of the undierstanding and of the heart ; of the 
mind as it comprehends, of the, heart, as it loves and 
desires to devote itself to God. It is a temper essen- 
tial to the character of children, and to their comfort 
also under the most common trials of life. We may 
find place for its exercise, even while in the possession 
of much that to the worldly eye passes for prosperity. 
For amidst the fairest and the brightest scenes of life, 
many disappointments, many troubles may arise to 
demand our submission. Under trials of this class, as 
well as all those afflictions which are inseparable from 
our condition here, the very terms on which we hold 
existence, many topics of consolation are readily sug- 
gested. We can remember the gracious design of 
such affliction ; the uncertainty of all earthly good ; 
the blessings that are yet remaining, and the mercy, 
therefore, that is mingled with the judgment. But 
there are cases of peculiar and aggravated grief. And 
when sorrow cometh in like a flood ; when Jehovah, in 
some awful providence, is passing before us as in thick 
clouds of the sky, and his waves and billows are roll- 
ing over us ; when, by a desolating stroke, he spoils us 
for ever of the fondest object of earthly dependence, 
the soul of the submissive sufferer can find rest in God 
alone. It forsakes those inferior objects on which, 
under a less calamity, it might have reposed. It over- 
looks even those subordinate truths which might have 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 11 

been sufficient for a less poignant grief; and humbling 
itself before the majesty of heaven, it implores refuge 
from him alone. It says, *' My soul, wait thou only 
upon God — my expectation is from Him." 

Nor is this sentiment of complete submission, after 
the calamity is appointed, in the smallest degree in- 
compatible with a previous earnestness of entreaty that 
it may be averted. Before the divine pleasure con- 
cerning us or our friends is determined, we are per- 
mitted to express the desires of our souls. We are 
encouraged, nay — blessed be his name for this privilege 
of prayer — we are commanded to pray for what seem- 
eth good to us, provided it is good also to him. '' While 
the child was yet alive," said David, " I fasted and 
prayed ; for I said, who can tell whether God will be 
gracious to me, that the child may live ? " And the 
Son of God, that pattern of all virtue, before he ex- 
pressed the deep submission of his soul, had thrice 
earnestly prayed, *' O, my Father, if it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me." But when he knew assu- 
redly that the cup was appointed, silent acquiescence 
took the place of prayer. " The cup which my 
Father hath given me — shall I not drink it ? " Thus 
also should it ever be with us. When fear of sorrow 
presses upon the heart ; when, in near or distant view, 
the tempest of adversity seems gathering around us ; 
especially at that sad hour, when the King of Terrors 
is approaching to separate those who knew but one 
heart and one hope — then, amidst the tumult and 
perplexity of grief, we may pray to God. We may 
entreat with the importunity of prayer, that the cup 
may pass. But as soon as a sovereign God has sig- 



12 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

nified his pleasure, and death has fulfilled the decree, 
and borne beyond the reach of supplication or tears, 
the object of our love — then comes the costly sacri- 
fice of faith, the demanded homage of our submission. 
Then must we be still, and know that it is God. Then 
must we say with him, who hath taught us of the 
Father, '*Not my will, but thine be done." 

It becomes us to make this the prevailing temper of 
our minds under all adversity, and even in our darkest 
hours, in the loss of what of earthly good was most 
precijDus to our souls, we must lift our filial eye to 
heaven, and though it be amidst tears, that nature 
cannot, and religion requires not to restrain, we must 
say, *' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. 
Blessed be the name of the Lord.'* 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 13 



RESIGNATION TO THE DIVINE WILL. 



PART SECOND, 



The cup which my Father hath giyen me — shall I not drink it ? 

' There are many reasons why we should accept the 
cup which our heavenly Father offers us ; why we 
should cherish and exhibit the spirit, of which our 
Master has here given us the beautiful example. We 
admit that it is the cup of sorrow, — for this, the very 
duty of which we are speaking implies, — and that it 
is sometimes mingled in bitterness. It may be sickness 
and pain, from which nature shrinks instinctively; it 
may be reproach, or wounded friendship, or disap- 
pointed hope, in which the heart only can know of its 
own anguish. It may be bereavement, spoiling us of 
the much-loved, the most cherished object of our soul, 
and turning affection and joy to darkness and dust. It 
may be the cup of death^ the last enemy which com- 
eth to all and may come to us, when it is least desired ; 
yet, shall we not drink it ? For consider the wisdom 
and love, the compassion and the faithfulness, with 
which it is mingled. 



4 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

1. It is appointed of God ; of him, the sovereign 
arbiter, the creator of all worlds, on whom the uni- 
verse depends, by whose might it is upheld, with 
whose glory it is filled, in whom we ourselves live, 
and move, and have our being. It is appointed of him, 
the om.nipotent and all-wise, who set the sun in the 
heavens and kindled the stars ; who clothes the earth 
in beauty and paints every flower of the field, and sat- 
isfies the wants of every living thing ; but at whose 
rebuke the pillars of heaven tremble, and the ever- 
lasting hills do bow. Of him, who dwells in light 
inaccessible, and in glory which no eye hath seen ; 
but who can make darkness also his pavilion, and 
cover the heaven with sackcloth, and seal up the stars. 
Can we refuse it from him, whose righteousness and 
truth, like his wisdom and his power, knows no limits 
and admit no change : who doeth what he pleaseth, 
and whom none may resist ? 

This view of the sovereignty of God, of his irresis- 
tible power and unalienable right, may serve, in the 
hour of overwhelming sorrow, to silence the murmur- 
ing or rebellious thought. It may rebuke the most 
presumptuous, who would resist, if they could, the 
decrees of heaven. But to the true child of God, who 
mingles his reverence of an infinite majesty with con- 
fidence in an unerring wisdom, it produces far nobler 
conceptions and worthier feelings. It awakens that 
salutary reverence, that holy fear, which with filial 
love is inseparable from true devotion, and which can 
find even in the tender mercies of a being like God, 
something grand and humbling to the soul. " Thou 
shalt fear the Lord and his goodness," is a command 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 15 

of Jehovah, perfectly compatible with the highest 
exercise of that goodness itself — a goodness which is 
at once so glorious in its nnanife stations, so mighty and 
so gracious, both when it gives and when it takes, that 
it becomes the object of our filial awe as well as trust ; 
and therefore it is declared, that ** the nations of the 
earth shall fear and tremble for the goodness he hath 
shown them." 

2. But beside the sovereignty of God, there are 
views of his paternal character more peculiarly adapt- 
ed to soothe and sustain the soul. '* The cup which 
my Father hath given me — shall I not drink it ? " 
Can you refuse it, child of God, from your Father, 
your wisest, kindest, and most faithful friend ? From 
him, the giver of all life and hope, who breathed into you 
from his own spirit, gave you an existence in this world, 
and a soul to reflect his image and share his immor- 
tality ? Can you refuse it from him, who rocked the 
cradle of your infancy ; lent you parents and kind 
friends to sustain you, when you had no power to sus- 
tain yourself; who has spread for you, each day, his 
liberal table ; upheld you every moment by his pa- 
rental arm ; from whose exhaustless bounty you have 
every thing you enjoy, and every thing you hope ? 
Who in your prosperity kindles the smile of congratu- 
lation, causing others to rejoice with you, and glad- 
dens you by the solace of sympathy ? who has 
never forgotten you amidst all your forgetfulness of 
him ? Will you refuse it, child of affliction, from him, 
who has not only made all nature contribute to your 
good, but has opened to the eye of your faith a 
brighter world than nature can promise, for the light 



16 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

and salvation of your soul ? From him, who has 
enriched you with all spiritual blessings, through 
Christ Jesus ; provided for you in his gospel a supply 
of all spiritual want, a remedy for all ills, a solace for 
all grief, and hopes that are full of immortality ? Will 
you refuse it from him, your God and Father, who has 
sent his own Son to bless you ; and to teach you that all 
his government and all his law, in every part and dis- 
pensation, alike in its gifts and inflictions, is a law of 
love ? 

How inestimable is this assurance of the paternal 
character of God, when we are called to endure the 
chastisements of his hand ! We should never cease 
to bless him, that amidst the clouds and darkness that 
hang around him, faith can penetrate the gloom, and 
see him as a Father. Faith can hear the voice speak- 
ing, " I, even I, am He, that comforteth thee. When 
thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, 
and through the floods, they shall not overflow thee, 
for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, 
thy Saviour." And the author and finisher of this 
faith has declared, " The Father himself loveth you. 
Let not your hearts be troubled." 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 17 



SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF CHILDREN CONSISTENT 
WITH THE DIVINE GOODNESS. 

The child that is born unto thee shall surely die. 

If we put out of view the existence of moral evil, 
the sufferings and death of young children present the 
most difficult circumstance in the divine providence. 
We feel neither surprise, nor a disposition to repine, 
when the infirm old man is removed from a world 
which he can no longer serve nor enjoy. When death 
lays its grasp upon the vigorous and useful, we find 
solace in the recollection of the good which they have 
done, and in the proofs which they have given of 
preparation for other scenes of improvement. If pain 
or sickness visit one who can understand and use it as 
moral discipline, we perceive the wisdom that provides 
in bodily suffering the means of lasting benefit to the 
mind. But that an infant, of a few days or months 
old, should endure severe distress, and be called to 
resign the life, of which it had scarcely become con- 
scious ; or that the child who was just beginning to 
discover the powers with which he was entrusted, 
should be snatched away, as if in mockery of hope, is 
2 



18 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

a circumstance which it does not seem so easy to 
reconcile with the benevolence of the Deity. 

Yet there are considerations to satisfy us that the 
providence which permits suffering and death to come 
upon little children, is not inconsistent with the good- 
ness of God. 

We must not overstate the difficulty, or present it in 
a stronger light than can be justified by facts. In con- 
sidering the evils incident to childhood, we must be 
mindful also of its pleasures. Infancy is seldom 
called to endure an excess of pain. Its motions, its 
smiles, its moments of quiet wakefulness, are eviden- 
ces of happy feeling. There are indications of the 
exercise of intellect and affection at a very early age. 
It may be impossible for us to estimate the amount of 
happiness that has been experienced ; but it is a very 
rare occurrence that a child of a few months, or even 
a few days old, dies without having found, in the short 
period of its existence here, a balance of good over 
evil. Life has been, on the whole, a blessing ; and 
therefore no argument is furnished against the divine 
benevolence. 

Neither is it just to say that children cannot receive 
benefit from sickness. It not unfrequently preserves 
them from other evils to which they might be exposed. 
Besides this, there is that beautiful law of our nature, 
by which attendance on the wants of the suffering 
endears to us the object of our kindness. A child to 
whom a mother has been devoted during months of 
illness, is regarded by her with more tender, though 
not more sincere affection, than that which she feels 
for her other children ; and a compensation is thus 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 19 

provided, both for maternal anxiety and infantile suf- 
fering. 

In regard to the death of children, it maybe ob- 
served, that if we are believers in the revelation of the 
gospel, we look upon every human being, however 
brief the term of its residence on earth, as an heir of 
immortality. This life is the passage through which 
the soul enters the spiritual world. Whether there are 
other avenues, by which that world receives increase 
oY the number of its inhabitants, we do not know. 
This may be the only state whence accessions are 
made to the immortal family of heaven. But on this 
fact we may rely with the confidence of Christian 
faith — that the souls of those who die in early child- 
hood exchange the garment of mortality for an incor- 
ruptible life. Here there is occasion for praise rather 
than sorrow. In creating a spirit to be a partaker of 
his own eternity, God is pleased to intrust it, for a 
short time, to the care of earthly parents. They 
behold the dawn of an endless day — the first impulses 
of a mind that shall never cease to act. Is not this a 
privilege that demands devout acknowledgment? Is 
it reasonable to complain because it is not of longer 
continuance ? To have introduced a soul to eternal 
glory is, methinks, a just occasion for gratitude and 
joy. We are anxious to have the precious things of 
earth in our possession, though we can retain them but 
a little while. We esteem it a favor, if a friend com- 
mits to our charge, for a few days only, a valuable 
picture, or even a rich flower, when its beauty is con- 
cealed in the bud. And is it not a favor to have the 
precious things of heaven lent to us? to have souls 



20 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

committed to our charge, though their beauty be not 
unfolded ; and they be taken away while yet in the 
germ ? 

We might, on the other hand, putting aside the 
testimony of revelation, derive from the death of chil- 
dren a presumption in favor of the doctrine of immor- 
tality. For let it be admitted, that all the elements of 
human character are wrapped up in the infant mind, 
and it will be difficult for us, I think, to believe that 
God would bring into existence, every year thousands, 
nay millions of minds, containing the seeds of perfec- 
tion, only to be destroyed by death. Such fickleness 
of purpose, or inability to execute a design, or indif- 
ference to its success — for to one or other, or all of these 
causes must we ascribe this result — might be found in 
man ; but are inconsistent with the character of God. 
Let it be supposed that the child possesses all the 
capacities which, should it arrive at adult age, would 
exist in the man ; and their present immaturity sug- 
gests the probability of their development elsewhere, 
should it be prevented here. The child that has just 
awakened to the consciousness of a rational nature ; 
the sinless infant, whose capacities have never been 
brought into action ; shall he drop into annihilation, 
before the humanity with which he is endowed shall 
have had an opportunity for exercise ? Is it not more 
probable that the sun, which has shed a beneficial light 
and has rejoiced in its course, shall sink into the 
domains of everlasting darkness, than that the lumi- 
nary which has shot a single beam across the morning 
sky shall be stricken forever from the lights of the 
creation ? 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 21 

The loss of children seems to bring us into acquaint- 
ance with the world of spirits. It is true, after .the 
death of any relative or friend whom we tenderly- 
loved, that the unseen state appears to have been 
opened to our view ; we at least know some of its 
inhabitants. A change takes place in our feelings 
concerning another world ; it has acquired in our judg- 
ment more of the character of reality ; it is nearer to 
us ; we have formed a permanent connection with it. 
It is not only the abode of angels, of whom we know 
so little, and of Jesus, whom, though we love, we have 
not seen, but of one whom we have seen, and known, 
and loved — one like ourselves, of the same race of 
beings. Our minds are affected, as when a member 
of our family removes to a distant country, of which 
we have read, and believed w^hat others have written ; 
but now we have a more immediate sense of its exist- 
ence, and though our friend should not write to us, yet 
our knowledge of his residence there makes us feel 
that we have some interest in the place : it is not 
altoorether a strange land. So when our faith beholds 
a friend passing the barriers of time, we feel that we 
sustain a personal relation to eternity, and through our 
former intimacy with him, from whom we shall no more 
receive intelligence, we are connected with the affairs of 
the spiritual world. This feeling is certainly not less 
deep or active, when the parent has resigned his child 
to the power of death, than after other forms of be- 
reavement. It probably is then awakened in its full 
strength, especially in the mother's heart. When the 
infant over whom she has watched with mingled joy 
and anxiety, who has lain in her bosom, and whose 



22 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

life has been almost identified with her own, is taken 
from her sight, the tie is not broken which bound her 
to the beino; with whom she had this intimate union. 
The chain of sympathies, by which they were drawn 
so closely together, is untwined, only to be extended 
from this to another world. The parent regards the 
state of the departed, wherever and whatever it may 
be, as possessing something which was once hers, and 
in which she had a more absolute property than any 
one else excepting God. That state, therefore, cannot 
be to her altogether unknown ; it holds what was once 
her treasure, her delight, her hope, and it is no 
longer a world to which she is a stranger. The advan- 
tages of this sense of connection with the invisible and 
the future are obvious. If it be not cherished .to such 
a degree as to interfere with the discharge of present 
duty, or the enjoyment of blessings that remain, it is 
highly valuable, by withdrawing the mind from its 
dependence upon the things of earth, and infusing a 
tone of spirituality into the general tenor of its feel- 
ings. 

There is yet another view of the connection between 
the two worlds, of which the earthly guardian becomes 
sensible through the death of a child, and which miay 
even be said to be created by this event. The infant 
is taken away before it is capable of self-direction. 
It will need teachers and protectors there as well as 
here. It will not be left alone ; it is borne by minis- 
tering spirits into the household of the saints, or into 
^some one of the bright companies of angels, from 
whom those will be selected who shall be intrusted 
with its education. The offices, which parental love 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 23 

was anxious to perform on earth, will be rendered by 
inhabitants of heaven. Powers, that were scarce 
opened to the light of discipline h^re, will be unfolded 
under the tutelage of the blessed ; where the infirmi- 
ties and errors that reduce the benefits of instruction 
here, will not embarrass the pupil or the teacher. 
Mothers, your children have found other friends, whose 
love is as pure, and whose care is more judicious than 
yours would have been. They have been embraced 
in the arms of spiritual affection ; sickness and pain 
they left with the flesh, and their immortal wants shall 
have abundant supply. Fathers, your sons will receive 
a better education than you could have given them, 
though your lives had been devoted to their improve- 
ment. How peculiar and intimate a connection is 
/here established between earth and heaven, between 
mortal parents and the celestial guardians of their 
offspring ! Imagination must be checked, or it will, 
with such materials of thought, employ itself amidst 
visions of the spiritual world, to the neglect of the 
demands which our present life urges. 

Another and a distinct benefit, of which the suffer- 
ings and death of children may be the occasion, is a 
better acquaintance with the character of God. He 
has chosen the paternal relation as that through which 
he would reveal himself to mankind, by the gospel of 
Jesus Christ. It is as a father that he would be 
known, and loved, and feared, and obeyed, and imi- 
tated. It is as a father that he observes, chastises, as- 
sists, and judges us. It is as a father that he loves us. 
The more perfect, therefor^, is our idea of the parental 
relation, the nearer may we approach to a conception 



24 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

of his character, at least in its aspect towards us. An 
acquaintance with the wants of childhood ; a know- 
ledge of the support and care which must be afforded 
it ; an experience of the anxiety which its sickness 
produces, and of the feelings consequent on the fatal 
issue of disease, are sources of instruction. The 
earthly parent is made to understand more fully the 
nature of his relation to the tender object of his 
regard, and thence may form a more complete image 
of the relation which the Infinite Parent sustains to 
him. He also perceives the character of the filial 
relation, in the dependence of his child upon him, and 
the obedience which he claims, and he may thus 
more clearly discern his own relation to the Father of 
the universe. The familiar saying, that our blessings 
are seldom justly appreciated until they are taken 
from us, is true in this, connection. Parents are often 
taught the value of that happiness which proceeds 
from their domestic ties, and the strength of that 
aifection which they bear to their offspring, by the 
sickness of a child, or its removal to another world. 
At such times, a mind disposed to receive advantage 
from trial will discover, in the intensity of its own 
feelings, an illustration of that love which we are 
justified, and even required by Christianity, to believe 
our Creator cherishes for us. Under such teaching it 
is barely possible that piety should not acquire the 
character of child-like love and obedience. While 
the parent is enduring the anguish of declining hope 
or of bereavement, the child of God is learning to 
trust in Him with a filial submission, and to rejoice in 
His will. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 25 



CONSOLATIONS UNDER THE DEATH OF CHILDREN. 

I shall go to him } but he shall not return to me. 

Piety is the natural refuge of the sorrow-stricken 
and burdened spirit. Borne down by adversity, or 
oppressed with grief, we turn our steps to God's altars, 
and seek in the promises and hopes of religion that 
alleviation and support which the world cannot yield. 

We cannot reverse the decrees of heaven. We 
cannot recall those who are taken from us. While 
they yet live, we bend over them with a breathless 
solicitude. We watch each varying symptom with 
feverish anxiety. We eagerly cling to the last feeble 
remains of hope. We fast, and pray, and weep, for 
who can tell, our fond hearts urge, whether God will 
yet be gracious ; whether he will yet save. But it is 
too late. The last agony is over ; the bitterness of 
death is past ; the spirit has returned to him who gave 
it. Wherefore, then, should we weep ? Can we 
bring lost ones back again ? Should we wish to recall 
them if we could ? Should we wish to take them 
from their heavenly reward, to restore them to earth, 
again to suffer, to weep, to renew their conflict with 
the world and with sin, and to undergo afresh the 



26 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

pangs of separation ? We shall go to them, but they 
shall not return to us. They have but crossed the 
flood a few days before us. We shall soon embark, 
and if we have been faithful and obedient, we shall 
go where our mutual knowledge will be renewed, and 
our earthly friendships revived, never more to be 
interrupted. Why then weep for the dead, who have 
but dropped their mortal habiliments, and have put on 
immortality? 

But they were early, it may be, summoned away. 
Their death, we think, was untimely, and therefore we 
grieve. We can bear to see the old pass away. The 
labors and enjoyments of life are ended ; their course 
is finished ; their race is run. It is fit that they should 
enter on their rest and reward. It is fit they should 
receive the crown of immortality. Their days are 
full, and they are gathered in, in their season. The 
remnant of life, were they spared, would be only 
bitterness, for their strength is labor and sorrow. 
They sink on the couch of death, and we feel that 
it would be wrong to mourn. 

But when the young die, the natural order of things 
seems reversed; our expectations are disappointed, 
and our feelings, in some sense, shocked. It is like 
the perishing of the buds and blossoms of spring, by 
which the hopes of the year are destroyed. Their 
days of usefulness, it may be, were but just com- 
mencing. They were just beginning to exert their 
capacities with success ; their powers were not yet 
fully unfolded ; they had not reached their full matu- 
rity and strength, when death intervened, and all their 
opportunities and projects, all the hopes which were 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 27 

centred in them, were suddenly ended. Hence sor- 
row fills the heart ; hence dejection and anguish. 
They are untimely gone ; gone in the freshness and 
promise of life's morning. Hence these tears. 

There are considerations, however, which may serve 
to alleviate affliction occasioned by the death of the 
young. True, their hope of usefulness is blighted by 
early death ; they are taken from the labors, the 
honors and enjoyments of life. But we should reflect 
that they are also' taken from its sufferings, its trials, 
its sorrows. As regards themselves, their removal 
may be a blessing ; we should trust that it is so. What 
is human life ? Too often a scene of feverish anxiety, 
of disappointment and anguish, a vanity, a sorrow. 
In how many forms may our peace and happiness be 
assailed ! How many are bowed down by sickness 
and misfortune ! How many consume their days and 
nights in wretchedness; the victims of neglect, un- 
kindness, and errors in others ! The young may be 
called hence, that they may be spared the sufferings 
and trials of earth. They may be taken from the evil 
to come. They have obtained their release, they have 
gone to their rest, ere sorrow had blighted their spirits. 
The tomb is a refuge into which care and grief can 
never intrude. There anguish cannot more rend the 
heart ; " no doubts bewilder, and no hopes betray." 
We would retain them ; but God, who discerns the 
future, to us a dark abyss, has better things in reserve 
for them. He assigns them, in mercy, a short journey 
through the rough paths of earth, and takes them early 
to heavenly joys. Why then mourn for them as 
though" some great evil had fallen on them? What 



V 



28 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

we deem their calamity is in fact their greatest feli- 
city. / 

Again, we should reflect that life has not only its 
sorrows, but its temptations. It is a state of constant 
warfare with sin. We maintain an incessant conflict 
with inward and outward foes ; and who can promise 
himself that he shall overcome ? Who can answer 
for his own heart to the end ? A thousand avenues 
conduct to the broad road of sin, and *' easy is the 
descent," but the way to life is rugged and the path 
narrow. Those early summoned are taken from a 
field of danger, of toil, and wretchedness. Their 
character is now sealed; they are safe. Our appre- 
hensions and solicitude for them are now past. Their 
spirits cannot now be dishonored by sin. If they 
have been faithful, and according to their ability and 
strength cultivated the Christian affections, we have a 
right to regard them as transported -to a seat in the 
paradise of God. They have gone to the Father; to 
the Father of Jesus and of us ; to his God and ours. 
Why mourn their translation ? Why indulge the self- 
ishness of grief? 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 29 



RESIGNATION. 

There is no flock, however watched and tended, 

Bat one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair ! 

The air is full of farewells to the dying, 

And mournings for the dead ; 
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 

Will not be comforted ! 

Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise, 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. 

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors ; 

Amid these earthly damps 
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, 

May be Heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no Death ! What seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call Death. 

She is not dead, — the child of our affection, — 

But gone unto that school 
Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 

And Christ himself doth rule. 



30 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, 

By guardian angels led, 
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, 

She lives, whom we call dead. 

Day after day we think what she is doing 

In those bright realms of air ; 
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, 

Behold her grown more fair. 

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken 

The bond which nature gives, 
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken. 

May reach her where she lives. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her ; 

For when, with raptures wild. 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child ; 

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, 

Clothed with celestial grace ; 
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion. 

Shall we behold her face. 

And though at times, impetuous with emotion 

And anguish long suppressed, 
The swelling heart heaves, moaning like the ocean. 

That cannot be at rest, — 

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 

"We cannot wholly stay ; 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing. 

The grief that must have way. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 31 



THE RE-UNION OF THE VIRTUOUS IN A STATE OF 
HAPPINESS AFTER DEATH. 



Father, I will, that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where 

I am. 



It is not from any vague or doubtful inferences that 
the Christian derives his belief of a future world. 
His faith is more direct and steadfast. Christ has 
risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of 
them that slept. The resurrection of our Lord, who 
was made in all things like unto his brethren, is an 
argument for man's immortality which, at the same 
time that it is more convincing than any which philo- 
sophy has urged, is so plain, that its force is imme- 
diately acknowledged by the humblest understanding. 

My object at present, however, is not to consider the 
proofs of a future existence, but assuming the truth of 
the doctrine, as revealed in the gospel, to ascertain 
how far it may encourage us in a belief of a re-union 
with our departed friends in heaven. It is an inquiry 
of the deepest interest. The hopes and fears, which 
it involves, are among the most powerful which can 
animate or distress the human bosom. The consola- 
tions that it may afford, are among the highest and 
dearest which can be brought to Affliction, when she 



32 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

sits in the dust and weeps for those who are not. Let 
us then inquire whether, after death, we shall or shall 
not be forever united with each other. 

Some, who perhaps have not duly considered this 
question, place it among those merely speculative 
ones, on which we can never hope, in this world, to 
obtain any satisfaction. Such are the questions : — 
Where is heaven to be ? What will be the occupa- 
tions there ? What kind of bodies shall we have, 
precisely ? On these particulars we may form our 
several theories, if we please, but there exists no real 
grounds for satisfactory conclusions. We must re- 
main in ignorance ; and it is of no great consequence 
that we should be informed. But the question, whether 
we shall rejoin and recognize hereafter those whom we 
knew and loved in this world, is of quite another 
character, of more interest and importance than those 
others, and admitting of a more easy and reasonable 
solution. 

1. In support of this opinion, I will observe, in the 
first place, that the resurrection which is revealed in 
the Gospel is a resurrection of individuals, as indi- 
viduals ; of each person in his distinct personality. 
Few will maintain that comfortless system of an- 
tiquity, which teaches that the human soul is to be 
absorbed, after the death of the body, into the spirit of 
the universe. What satisfaction can it give us to 
know that we shall not be entirely lost in the great 
creation, if we are also to know, that we must resign 
all separate perceptions and pleasures, and never must 
think, feel or enjoy, as distinct existences ? 

It will be granted, therefore, that it is by no means 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 33 

a presumptuous or unwarranted, but a very simple 
thing, to say, that we shall live hereafter as separate 
and distinct individuals, as truly so as we exist in the 
present life. And yet from this unpretending and 
almost self-evident postulate, we may clearly deduce 
the doctrine, which some please to call a speculative 
one, of the re-union and recognition of friends in a 
future state* 

If it is evident, that we are to exist as distinct in- 
dividuals, it is equally evident, that we must know 
ourselves to be the same individuals who existed here. 
For if we are not to be made certain of that, a resur- 
rection will be equivalent to another creation ; to the 
formation of a race of beings with whom we, who now 
live on the earth, can have nothing to do. That the 
belief of a future state may exert the least influence 
over our conduct, it is necessary that we should also 
believe that we shall be able to identify ourselves then, 
with ourselves as we are now ; otherwise our belief 
will furnish no motive to virtue, nor any consolation in 
adversity. 

It is further evident, that if we are to be conscious 
of our identity with our former selves, we must be 
conscious of the acts of our former existence ; es- 
pecially if we regard the future state as a state of 
retribution. For it is impossible to conceive how we 
can be the subjects of reward or punishment, without 
being sensible of what we had done, or omitted, on 
earth, to render us deserving of either. But if we are 
to be conscious of the acts of our former existence, 
if we are to remember our conduct while we were on 
the earth, we must likewise remember those among 
3 



34 -AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

whom we had our conversation, those who in a great 
measure made our conduct what it was. Our duties, 
virtues, faults, sins and vices, arise almost altogether 
from the relations of society. We cannot remember 
the one without calling to mind the other. They are 
inseparably united, and the imagination cannot disjoin 
them. If I should remember that I had done a par- 
ticular injury on earth, I must remember him whom I 
injured. If I should remember that I had performed 
a particular act of benevolence, I must remember the 
person whom I assisted. How much more should I 
remember, in the review of my life, those with whom 
I had been connected in the daily and most intimate 
intercourse of life ; those who had exercised the most 
efficacious influences in the formation of my charac- 
ter; those who had called forth, and gained and kept, 
the best affections of. my heart. The recollection of 
my former self, and my former associates, must be 
produced together, and from the same principle. If 
the one is evident, the other is so too. 

We have now a direct inference of the mutual recol- 
lection of friends in a future state, from the Christian 
doctrine of the resurrection of each individual to a 
distinct existence. And so well am I satisfied that the 
inference is rational and sound, that I could hardly 
tell whi6h of the two doctrines I most firmly believed. 

But the recollection of our friends, and a re-union 
with them, are not one and the same thing. There is 
still another step to be taken, from the one to the 
other. We may recollect our friends, and yet not be 
permitted to recognize or rejoin them. But is this 
probable ? Can we for a moment suppose it ? Will 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 35 

God disappoint our most cherished expectations ? Will 
he condemn us to preserve in our memory the shadows 
of those we loved, while he denies to us their society 
and sympathy ? Are we not only doomed to endure 
the pangs of separation from them here, but to know, 
in the future world, that when we left them here, we 
lost them for ever? The supposition is inconsistent 
with the goodness of our Creator, and should be dis- 
missed as such. We shall not only remember, but 
rejoin, in the heavenly world, the friends from whom 
we had been transiently separated by death. 

2. There is another course yet more direct, if pos- 
sible, than the above, which will bring us to the same 
conclusion. It involves no subtilties or minute discus- 
sions, and consists in the answer to as simple a ques- 
tion as could well be asked. The question is this — 
Are we, or are we not, in the world above, to live 
alone ? Are we, or are we not, to lead, after death, 
an eternity of solitude ? This is the only alternative. 
Each soul, in its glorified state, must either have a 
range entirely to itself, which shall never approach the 
sphere of any other soul, or it must associate with its 
kindred. It must exist in solitude, or in society. Let 
any one put this plain question to himself, and he 
cannot hesitate in giving his answer. He will per- 
ceive, that it is contrary to sound reason to imagine an 
eternal life of loneliness ; and he will decide that the 
life of the blessed must be a life of society. And 
what society can it be, but that of friends ? By whom 
shall we be surrounded but by our friends ? With 
whom shall we live, if not with our friends ? What 
beings will be more likely to partake with us the joys 



36 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

of heaven, than those who shared with us the joys and 
the sorrows of earth ? . What souls will be so probably 
associated with our own, as those to which our own 
had been endeared and assimilated by education, habit, 
intercourse, and time ? Among the innumerable hosts 
of heaven, shall we be denied the sight of those whom 
of all others we most wished to see ? In the vast as- 
sembly of spirits, shall we search in vain for those 
whom we seek most eagerly ? Will the only blank in 
creation be that which we are the most desirous to 
fill ? Will the only wounds which are left unhealed 
be those which death had inflicted, and which we 
hoped that immortality would cure ? O^r feelings, 
our reason, our common sense, will at once reply, that 
it cannot be so. 

These rational conclusions will not be disturbed, but, 
on the contrary, confirmed by scripture. Though it 
does not declare directly and fully that we shall know 
one another in a future state, it yet often implies that 
we shall, and never intimates that we shall not. Some 
of the passages which contain this presumptive evi- 
dence I will now bring together. 

At the close of the earnest and affectionate interces- 
sion, which just before his crucifixion Christ offered up 
for his disciples, he introduces the following petition: 
" Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given 
me, be with me, where I am ; that they may behold 
my glory, which thou hast given me." It is apparent 
from these words, that our Saviour expected to meet, 
in the glorious state which was to be the reward of his 
obedience and sufl^erings, both those who were then 
his disciples, arid all who should become so afterwards. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 37 

For in the address to his disciples, which precedes his 
prayer for them, he expresses himself quite as strongly. 
" In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were 
not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place 
for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I 
will come again, and receive you unto myself; that 
where I am, there ye may be also." These words 
appear to me to be explicit ; and we have only to take 
a short, an easy, I may say an unavoidable step, from 
the fact that the disciples of Christ are to be with him, 
and one another, to arrive at the conclusion, that they 
will know him and one another. We may gather the 
same meaning, and form the same conclusion, from 
the following words of St. Paul in his second epistle to 
the Corinthians : — " Knowing that he who raised 
up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and 
shall present us with you.'' 

I would add, that heaven is never spoken of as a 
solitary, but often as a social place of existence. It is 
designated by words which imply society and inter- 
course, and mutual knowledge — such for instance as 
a city, a kingdom, a church, an assembly. We meet 
with an extraordinary number of these words, in a 
short and continuous passage of the epistle to the 
Hebrews, xii. 22 : — '' But ye are come unto Mount 
Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 
to the general assembly and church of the first-born, 
w^hich are written in heaven, and to God the judge of 
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect." 

Passages and expressions similar to these we shall 
often find in the holy volume. The least that can be 



38 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

said of them is, that they countenance an opinion 
which is prompted by affection and confirmed by 
reason. To my mind they complete the proof of a 
recognition and re-union of friends in the future state. 

In endeavoring to maintain this belief, T cannot per- 
ceive that I have wandered into the region of mere 
speculation. It has been my object to make it appear 
a reasonable doctrine. For as reasonableness is a 
quality which, as far as I can judge of it, I never fail 
to require for every article of my own creed, so it is a 
rule by which I desire to see every opinion examined, 
and adopted or rejected, by others. 

After discussing the grounds of the doctrine, we 
are at liberty to speak of its moral effects. No one 
will deny that these are of great importance. Its con-' 
solations are abundant. Like an angel of mercy, it 
hastens to the house which the angel of death has 
overshadowed ; wipes away the tears of its inmates, 
before time can arrive with its tardy comfort; and 
gives peace to the bosom, when philosophy and stoi- 
cism have done their utmost in forcing composure on 
the features. It tells us, that those who were not 
permitted to accompany us to the end of our earthly 
journey, have only been taken before us to their rest- 
ing place, where we shall soon rejoin them. It will 
teach us to look on dissolution as only a longer or 
shorter term of temporary absence from those who 
have made life pleasant to us ; as a suspension merely 
of those friendships and intimacies, which have af- 
forded us the best part of what we have known as 
happiness ; and we shall wait with a holy patience for. 
a renewal of them, where they will never again be 
interrupted nor broken. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 39 

The influence of such a belief on the affections will 
naturally be extended to the conduct. It must be a 
purifying as well as a consolatory faith. The convic- 
tion that we shall meet our righteous friends in heaven, 
in the holy dwelling-place of God, if our own charac- 
ters are such as will admit us to their company, will 
naturally make us anxious to amend and improve our 
lives, and separate ourselves from all defilement. We 
may expect that our union will then be immediate. 
But obstinate sin, we have .every reason to believe, 
will prove a dreary banishment from the abodes of 
bliss, and from those who inhabit them. And it is my 
belief, that this separation of the wicked from the 
good will be one of the punishments of the former, 
and one of the inducements by which they will be 
moved to seek the forfeited favor of the Almighty, 
and a restoration to those friends from whom their evil 
deeds had estranged them. 

I would observe, in closing, that there are those on 
the earth, whose days God has been pleased to pro- 
long till they have survived all that blessed their eyes 
or satisfied their affections, and till they have seen the 
dearest objects of their love fade away and fall around 
them, " like leaves in wintry weather." To such, the 
doctrine of a speedy re-union must be something more 
than consolatory. It will prepare them to throw off 
life as an old and useless garment, and invite death as 
a redeeming friend. 

If that high world, which lies beyond 

Our own, surviving love endears ; 
If there the cherished heart be fond. 

The eye the same, except in tears — 



40 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

How welcome those untrodden spheres ! 

How sweet this very hour to die ! 
To soar from earth, and find all fears 

Lost in thy light — Eternity ! 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 41 



CHRIST'S LEGACY TO HIS DISCIPLES. 
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give vinto you. 



A CALM and sacred peacefulness of mind is given to 
the devout and consistent Christian, such as no worldly 
power can impart, and which no worldly power can 
destroy. Unlike the flashes of joy which kindle the 
countenance, and send the electric sparks of an excited 
spirit through the circles of the frivolous and gay, it is 
a peacefulness which dwells not on the surface, but an 
inward light ; it burns clearly and brightly in the sanc- 
tuary of the soul. It is quenched not, dimmed not, by 
the vicissitudes of life ; and even w^hen all earthly pros- 
pects are darkened and all earthly hopes destroyed, it 
points steadily to a bright and quiet and far-off spot, fast 
by the throne of God, where the weary will be at rest. 

The Christian derives peace from the conviction, that 
the events of life are ordered by a Providence which, 
though it inflict partial and temporary suffering, is ad- 
ministered for universal and eternal good. He knows 
that nothing is too great to be above the care of his 
heavenly Father ; nothing too small to be below it. He 
is assured that the gracious Being, who regards with 
compassion the sparrow that falls silently to the ground, 



42 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

and clothes the smallest field-flower with beauty and 
fragrance, while he wheels the planets in their orbits 
and restrains the sun in his place of light, will never 
forget the humblest individual whom he has created in 
his own image, and destined to immortality. He feels 
that the darkest events of Providence are appointed in 
love, and that the benevolent Father who pities his 
children, and knows that they are dust, sends no sor- 
row without a kind design. 

This is indeed a hard lesson to learn. It is taught 
thoroughly in the school of Christ alone, that the dis- 
cipline of suffering is as truly a part of the order of 
Providence, and as strong a proof of the love of God, 
as the blessings of prosperity. You may acknowledge 
the benevolence of the Deity, and be able to feel it in 
the loveliness of a summer's landscape, where the 
blue heavens and the bright waters and the green 
earth are mingled in a common expression of beauty, 
and the magnificent drapery of nature is all unfolded 
by a divine hand ; but do you not know, that the 
blighting frosts and chilling snows, the gloom and deso- 
lation of winter, are appointed by the same Almighty 
author, and that He who causes the gentle showers, 
which refresh the thirsty earth, rides forth in the whirl- 
wind, and directs the tempest ? Does he send the 
one in love and the other in anger ? Is not the God of 
the summer and the God of the winter the same ? 
Are not his tender mercies over all his works ? Do 
you not see him in the red lightning and the angry 
storm, as well as in the blue sky and tranquil heavens ? 
Does the long resounding thunder, which inflicts evil 
upon a part for the benefit of the whole, speak less 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 43 

distinctly the praises of Jehovah, than the gentle 
music of the wind, as it dies peacefully away over the 
echoing hills ? 

And as natural evil and natural good are thus blen- 
ded in just proportion for the benefit of nnan, the 
Christian perceives that the trials of life and the bless- 
ings of life are from the same wise Providence, and 
that adversity has its sweet and sacred uses, as well as 
prosperity. In sickness as well as in health ; in sorrow 
as well as in joy ; in the event which prostrates his 
hopes, as well as in that which elevates them, he 
recognizes the will of the same God. What ! he 
devoutly exclaims, what ! shall I receive good at the 
hand of the Lord, and shall I not also receive evil ? 
The Lord gave, the same Lord hath taken away : 
blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed when he 
gives, and when he takes away. 

The Christian, moreover, derives peace from the 
assurance, that as all the allotments of Providence 
come from a father, and are sent in love, so they may 
all contribute to the ultimate welfare of his soul. The 
gospel teaches us not only that it is good for us to be 
afflicted, but it explains how it is good for us to be 
afflicted. It informs us that the great object of life is 
the cultivation of our moral being, It informs us, that 
though outward blessings are taken from us, if the 
inward virtues are increased, our highest good is not 
injured, but on the contrary augmented. Now we 
know, by our observation of the human mind, that 
certain traits of character are not fully developed in 
the sunshine of prosperity, but are nurtured and flour- 
ish and grow up amid the storms of adversity. Many 



44 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

a beautiful plant is brought to perfection, nriany a 
precious fruit is ripened, not so much by the hot sun 
of noon, as by the refreshing moisture of midnight. 
So many a beautiful and precious virtue of the soul is 
best cherished in silence and solitude, when all things 
bright and fair have vanished, and darkness broods 
around. 

There is thus in the eternal plan of Providence a 
principle of compensation, by which sorrow is turned 
into joy, and present troubles produce lasting benefits. 
The light affliction, which is but for a moment, works 
out for the subdued and improved sufferer a far more 
exceeding and an eternal weight of glory. No matter 
in what form the trial comes ; no matter what stern form 
it may assume ; it is sent for the best good of man. 
It is borne from the throne of the Almighty, not by a 
demon of wrath, but by an angel of mercy. The cup 
of trembling which he presents, though it contain the 
waters of bitterness, is filled from the fountain of life. 

In feelings and hopes like these does the Christian 
find peace. Thus is fulfilled that blessed promise of 
our Lord, — ''Peace I leave with you. My peace I 
give unto you.^' 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 45 



FRAGMENTS. 



For what was call'd 



Affliction, brought an evidence of love. 

It came disguis'd in sorrow's livery, 

But it threw off her borrow'd garb, and lo ! 

The white rob'd Angel of celestial love 

With her sweet influence was there. She still'd 

His troubled thoughts, open'd his blinded heart. 

And led him out beyond the changing earth, 

And pointed up to the Eternal mind, 

That taketh knowledge of a sparrow's fall. 

And lights a world with glory j that will hear 

A sigh's low music 'mid the swelling praise, 

Which rushes upward from a thousand realms. 



Light came from darkness, gladness from despair ; 

As, when the sunlight fadeth from the earth. 

Star after star comes out upon the sky, 

And shining worlds that had not been revealed. 

In day's full light, are then made manifest: 

'T was so with him. — The light of earth shut out. 

His thoughts turn'd inward, and discover'd there 

Things of immortal wonder, living springs 

Of an unfailing comfort ; hidden things. 

Brighter than earth's allurements. He could trace 

The operations of the immortal mind. 

On its high path to excellence and joy. 

And see the prize of its high calling there. 



46 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



She too, the fair young creature by my side, 



All gay with hope, all buoyant with delight ; 

Will aught of evil leave its traces there ? 

That voice, which breathes such music to the ear, 

Oh, will it lose the rapture of its song ? 

Flower of life's desert ! Must a shade too fall 

On the young freshness of thy op'ning morn ? 

Oh ! if a prayer can win the ear of Heav'n, 

By the soul's strength that sends it, this shall be heard 

That never grief may cloud that radiant brow, 

Or send a tear where smiles are resting now. 



Why should such thoughts come o'er me ? Why, 

When all is bright and happy, should a gloom 

Be spread around us ? Oh ! blind and thoughtless soul ! 

'T is the same pow'r that reigns, and the same love 

Is trae'd alike in sunshine and in shade ; 

The cloud that bears the thunder in its folds 

Comes on the errand of *' good will to man.'* 

Oh ! we should cling too close to earth, and love 

Too well its pleasures and delights. 

Were there no shadows on its scenes of light, « 

No sorrow mingled with its cup of joy. 

If sweet fulfilment follow 'd all our hopes 

Like the unfoldings of the spring-flower bud, 

We should not seek a better world than this ; 

Where, then, would be the reachings of the soul 

For higher pleasures, and those purer joys 

That have no other dwelling-place but heaven ? 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 47 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

Extract of a letter from **** **** ****, to a sister, after a severe bereavement. 

My dear C. : — 

I TRUST you have not ascribed it to any want of feel- 
ing or interest, that I have not said more to you in 
relation to that painful bereavement, which Providence 
has so mysteriously appointed you. I cannot say what 
I would in words. Would to heaven I had power to 
say any thing to assuage that grief which, with the 
highest principles and the noblest view must be poig- 
nant indeed. The greatness of this trial no one can 
fully know that has not tested it. But I know enough 
to awaken all my sympathy. It is a poor gift ; but if 
it will yield you any consolation, you may draw large^ 
ly from this source. 

But there are higher sources of consolation ; sources 
of whose freeness and fulness we need not the 
assurance of man. On this subject man may well 
confess his inability to speak. He need not speak, for 
God and Jesus have spoken, and he can add nothing : 
we rejoice that he can take away nothing from what is 
written on the sacred page. It has always seemed to 
me one of the highest beauties and blessings of our 



48 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

religion, that it is so full of clear, unequivocal, delight- 
ful assurances for our support and solace in the loss of 
children. There is a mildness and clearness in its 
language on this subject — I mean the purity and con- 
sequent happiness of the departed child — and at the 
same time a certainty and power, which we do not 
find in other connections, and which the heart must be 
dead to resist. Christianity appears to yearn towards 
the young with a mother's tenderness and love ; and 
when they are taken away, it seems but another visible 
scene of their Saviour taking them to his arms, bless- 
ing them, and saying — "Of such is my kingdom," 
*' forbid them not to come to me." And after the first 
irrepressible burst of sorrow, why can we not as truly 
rejoice that they are taken to those arms and that 
kingdom in heaven, as we should have rejoiced to 
have seen them thus embraced and blessed on earth ? 
They are of a higher kingdom. They belong to a 
purer realm. And is it wrong in us, or is it nothing, 
to find consolation in the thought that we have con- 
tributed to the purity and joy of ihkt realm, by relin- 
quishing a portion of our own present happiness } 
Can we refuse, can we hesitate for a moment to press 
the uncertain, and at best very transient gratification of 
a life prolonged to us, when we know that by this 
sacrifice we purchase for the little loved one a deliv- 
erance from all possible evil, and a sure admission to 
eternal bliss ? 

In all common cases of affliction there is, there must 
be consolation flowing in upon every good mind, from 
such thoughts as these. And I ask, is this consolation 
less, less abundant or less sure, because yours is not a 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 49 

common case ? Will you permit the peculiar circum- 
stances of your trial to weigh upon your spirit, and 
prevent you from deriving that support and solace 
which you would otherwise obtain ? In my view, the 
very peculiarities of your case, while they must for 
the time aggravate your distress, when rightly consid- 
ered, may and will have the opposite effect. For they 
are most plainly the direct appointment of God. 
There is a providence in them, above our knowledge 
and control. They point us strongly to the irresistible 
power, the absolute dominion of God over his crea- 
tures. They make us feel, what we are apt only to 
say, that we are not our own, but His ; our bodies and 
our spirits, ourselves and our children, our all : and 
they teach us how wretched and helpless would be our 
condition if it were not so. In a word, such events 
force upon us the whole and great truth of our near- 
ness to God ; and make us see that it is not only the 
dictate of religion, but the part of wisdom, to yield 
every thing to him. " Do with us, what seemeth to 
thee good,*' 



50 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

Extract from a letter written by a father to his daughter, whi^e she was absent 
on a journey, after the death of a loyely boy. 

My dear Child : — 

1 RECEIVED last evening your husband's letter of the 
23d instant, and was glad you had got thus far on your 
journey ; and that your trouble on your way was less 
than you expected. My fond wishes attend you, that 
all the evils of life may thus disappoint you, as I am 
sure our happiness in the next, if we conduct well in 
this, will exceed our most unbounded expectations. 

Though these small occurrences gave me pleasure, 
it would have been very greatly increased, had he 
informed me your spirits revived, and the beauties of 
Nature had called forth a more cheerful enjoyment of 
the sweets that surround you. I did hope and I yet 
hope, they will have that happy effect before you 
return, or I should not have advised to the jaunt, but 
should rather wished you to stay at home, that I might 
have mourned with you the separation of the moment, 
not the loss, of your darling boy. I know the luxury 
of woe has many charms for the feeling mind, and I 
believe when it is enjoyed in reasoU, it seems to soften- 
and compose. The luxuries of life, if only now and 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 51 

then enjoyed, are undoubtedly desirable, and perhaps 
innocent; but when indulged intemperately, we all 
know the pleasure soon cloys, and the most fatal con- 
sequences ensue. So the superior luxury which pro- 
ceeds from virtuous grief, when separated by the 
grave from those we love, if indulged to excess, preys 
upon the spirits, destroys our usefulness in life, under- 
mines the vital principle, and conveys us to the grave, 
to rest with our friends there. But this entirely frus- 
trates the designs of a merciful God, who sends 
afflictions that we may know how to conduct in life, not 
to force us out of it ; that we may see the insufficiency 
of every thing here below to produce real happiness, 
and to wean us from sublunary things ; that we may 
be prepared for that substantial happiness, which 
awaits the virtuous in a better world. To desert 
our post because difficulties attend us; and to refuse 
the comforts offered us on our journey, because they 
are not equal to the elegancies we have at home, would 
be condemned by every thinking person. It is easier 
to advise than to practise ; but I nevertheless do not 
expect you will retort upon me. My judgment tells 
me it is right to submit implicitly to whatever our 
Almighty friend sees fit to bring us in life. He is our 
friend, and most assuredly orders the occurrences of 
our life for our best good ; and although now we see it 
not, yet at the last it will most fully appear. If there- 
fore we cannot now see, let us learn to believe and 
trust. Trust whom ? Not an Almighty, inflexible 
Being, who from eternity appoints his creatures to 
misery. Such a t>eing all might fear, but none could 
love. No : but a Being whose goodness is every where 



52 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



91 



displayed ; " who willeth not the death of a sinner, 
nor unnecessary distress to any of his creatures, for 
his tender mercies are over all his works. The lovely 
babe we deplore has, by submitttng to death,^ paid all 
that was demanded for the transgression of our first 
parents ; and having none of his own to account for, 
was, through the mercy of our Saviour, received to a 
share in his glory, and is now singing hosannas with 
our blessed friends in heaven. 

I hope you will not disappoint my expectations ; that 
you will recall that cheerful deportment which ren- 
dered you agreeable to all your friends. Remember 
you have a tender husband, who justly loves you, and 
mourns with you; a darling child still remaining; a 
father, much of whose hope of comfort in life leans 
upon you ; and many friends, who esteem and love 
and draw much of their comfort from you. These, to 
whose happiness you can so essentially contribute, 
demand your attention. But to the cherub, if your 
indulgence of grief can have any effect, it must be to 
lessen his happiness ! And if to give is more blessed 
than to receive, it certainly is more blessed to give 
than to take away from the happiness of any one. 

The power of benevolence you have not lost ; and 
there are more avenues from that source than the bare 
bestowment of money. To give comfort and happi- 
ness to your friends and connections, by enjoying it 
yourself, may justly be placed to that account. I 
entreat you, therefore, to exert yourself, and disap- 
point me not in this my wish and just expectation. I 
could write a volume, were it necessary, on the excel- 
lent lesson conveyed in the beautiful fable of the 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 53 

' Hermit,' but you know it already ; and if you have 
not before, I hope you will now indulge reflections on 
it something like those ; for they will serve to reconcile 
you to the doings of that God who cannot do wrong. 
Remember, to enjoy is to obey ; but to reject the bless- 
ings offered may be the means of their being withheld. 
And although those justly-beloved comforts may be 
hidden from us for a moment, if we submit without 
repining, and enjoy those that remain with gratitude to 
the benevolent Giver, the time will come when they 
shall be brought again to our view and society, beau- 
tiful as angels, and the enjoyment of them shall be 
durable as eternity. 

I have to inform you of the death of Professor 

T , which took place yesterday morning. He 

was a worthy man, and is now gone to receive his 
reward. I expect you will write soon, yourself; and 
let me see, by the contents, that though the mother and 
the friend may feel, yet the Christian can suffer with 
resignation, fortitude and hope ; and that your aspira- 
tions afier heaven, and the desire of possessing it, are 
increased by every deprivation you are called to suffer 
on earth ; knowing they are appointed by your Father 
in heaven, who loves you more than your truly affec- 
tionate father on earth. 



54 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



REFLECTIONS ON VISITING THE GRAVE OF A CHILD. 

In the spring of the last year I attended the funeral 
of a child ; one that I had often seen the parents gaze 
upon with an expression of deep delight, and seem- 
ingly without the least consciousness that it was not an 
immortal thing. I could understand their happiness, 
but not their security : for I had shared that calamity, 
from which life is not free, and with a heavy but I 
trust an humble heart, had laid my treasure in the 
dust. I was prepared therefore to sympathize with 
them, " tear for tear." But in truth, the heart most 
acquainted with grief must have been moved at the 
sight of a child, beautiful as the morning star, called 
away from his parents' care and tenderness, and soon 
to lay his head on a colder pillow than his mother's 
breast. The scene was impressive, even awful ; the 
stillness of the mansion which had wrung with his 
laugh of gladness; the parents wrapt in unutterable 
woe ; the children gazing with wonder and awe on the 
mystery of death ; and old men, each pondering as he 
leaned on his staff, why so lovely a form should be 
created only, as it seemed, to be dashed in pieces ; all 
was silence, thoughtfulness, and death. In the midst 
of them lay the child, once so tender and helpless, 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 55 

now insensible to all human affections. His features 
bore that unsearchable depth of expression which no 
mortal eye could read ; there was a smile on his lips, 
and a clear radiance on his brow, that made all who 
beheld it feel the unapproachable majesty of death. 
Soon the melancholy bell, the returning procession, 
and the tomb closing on its creaking hinges, told, me 
that he had passed the boundary that separated the 
living from the dead. 

In the autumn, I happened to visit the burial-place. 
This is a favorite retreat of the thoughtful ; it has a 
solitude of its own, neither dreary nor oppressive ; a 
holy and gentle stillness, which is felt by every one 
that passes by. It was in a season of the day and 
year auspicious to such influences ; the red leaves 
were just beginning to wither and fall ; the breathing 
of Nature was like a universal sigh ; the evening 
clouds were hurrying to the west, to float once more in 
the sunset radiance ; and all was still, as the decay 
that wears the marble of the tombs. The pale monu- 
ments rose around me, telling of the dead, not so 
much what they were, as what they ought to have 
been. But I was less moved by all their legends of 
vanity or affection, than by one small stone, which 
hardly rose above its bed of green. It was the memo- 
rial of that child who perished in the infancy and 
innocency of existence ; leaving no more traces of 
himself among the living, than the cloud that wanders 
and melts away in the blue of heaven. 

I could not help meditating on the effect of time. 
At the time when the leaves which I saw falling 
around me were opening, this child was in the bright- 



56 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

ness of its rising. Now, it was gathered, " dust to 
dust;" then, it was taken from the living, and the 
parents refused all comfort, both of God and man. 
Now, most of those who shed tears for his early 
departure, had forgotten where they had laid him ; 
and the parents themselves treasured his memory with 
far more tenderness than gloom. Had they not the 
same consolations then ? Had any visible angel, since, 
said to them that he was not here, but had risen ? 
Was not the Sun of righteousness shining as brilliantly 
then upon the world as now ? I felt that time had 
done what rehgion then could not do : what religion 
might then have done, had it been intimate in the 
heart. For it was designed to remove the terrors of 
the grave ; and instead of throwing ourselves open to 
the accidents and misfortunes of life, we should take 
the consolation God^has offered, and bind it to our 
souls. We should not allow ourselves to be entirely 
passive in the day of trial. We should exert all the 
energy of our nature, touched and quickened by reli- 
gion. If our hearts are strung to the trials of life, 
like the fine instrument, their tones will be inspiring; 
but give them up to the influences of the world, and 
they are all sadness, like the harp of the winds, on 
which the passing breeze makes what melody it will. 

And yet it would seem as if the anguish of sorrow 
was almost as deep, as if our religion never had come. 
The tears flow as fast and freely as they did two 
thousand years ago ; but then immortality was like 
some star which shone unregarded in the heaven. 
Now, its periods have been measured : its vastness 
revealed ; and it has been made a guide to wanderers 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 57 

on the sea. Still we regard the future with uneasiness 
and dread ; we set our affections on perishing things, 
and are miserable when we lose them. When our 
friends are living and happy, we feel as if they were 
immortal ; when they are gone, we mourn for them as 
if they were lost for ever. 

I saw the book of Nature spread open before me, as 
I stood in this place of death ; and it seemed as if I 
could read better things on its illuminated page. It is 
a revelation of God, like Christianity. If our Sa- 
viour told his disciples to gather instruction from the 
lowly flowers, there inust be something taught in the 
grand and beautiful works of God. I cannot believe 
that the sun and moon have shone six thousand years 
merely to enlighten the world ; or that the planets 
wheel through their bewildering paths only id glad- 
den the eye with their beauty. These things have a 
holier purpose, a religious design. We see that not a 
leaf fades till the purpose of its existence is fulfilled ; 
and then we learn that the infant cannot perish, though 
in the sight of men it seems to die. '' He asked life 
of thee, and thou gavest it him ; even length of days 
for ever and ever." All this is more than confirmed 
by Christianity ; and religion hardly acknowledges 
such a thing as death ; for there is no such thing as 
death to the soul. The change which bears the name 
of death cannot deprive it of one of its affections or 
its powers ; and if any human spirits are prepared to 
enter the heavenly mansions, they must be those that 
have left this world in the day-break of their existence, 
before they have been darkened by calamity or pro- 
faned by sin. The time which is best for beginning 



58 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

their immortal improvement is the time to die ; and if 
we had the power, who would dare withhold them 
from their Father and our Father, from their God and 
our God ? 

I left that place with a conviction which I hope will 
never fail me ; a conviction that death is not the mo- 
mentous change we imagine. It is neither the close 
of life nor the beginning of immortal existence. The 
change which makes man religious should date the 
time when *^ the corruptible puts on incorruption, and 
the mortal immortality." The first heralds of our 
faith, the most intrepid men the world ever saw, re- 
garded death with comparative indifference ; they 
looked upon it, not as a time when they should be 
altered in their destiny, character or feeling ; it was 
simply a dissolution of the form ; a release from the 
body whose infirmities had so often weighed down 
the soul. The heaven of the blest begins when 
they begin to feel the peace which religion gives : 
death will only place them where the shadows of 
earth shall no longer surround them ; they will 
go on in the same path which they trod below ; 
or rather in the same direction, for they shall ascend 
with " wings as eagles," and go on rejoicing in their 
glorious flight through the boundless heaven. 

Oh ! that we understood this ! Then the relation of 
parents and of children would be far more endearing 
and exalted. They who give their children life are to 
give them immortality. When they teach them to add 
the beauty of holiness to the beauty of childhood and 
of youth ; when they impress religion on their souls by 
the eloquence of the simple story or the music of the 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 59 

plaintive hymn ; when they show them how to gather 
the harvest of peace and happiness which forms the 
heaven of the blest, they are making them immortal. 
To them there shall be no more death. The grave 
shall not be an interruption in that never-ending way, 
in which they pass from glory to glory on either side 
the grave. And they who are taken before their 
promise is unfolded, when their smiles are bright with 
an intelligence which only a parent's eye can read, do 
not taste of death ; they are translated, like the early 
friend of God. 

Let those who are weeping for their children re- 
member this, and be comforted. That loved one is 
with Him, who suffered children to come to him when 
he lived below. It is with the spirits of the just. Had 
it lived, it might have been happy ; but now there is no 
uncertainty. It lives where it must be happy. The 
gentle star is not quenched so soon as they imagine. 
They see it no longer, because it is lost in the deeper ' 
brightness of the sky. 



60 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



" IT IS SOWN IN WEAKNESS ; IT IS RAISED 
IN POWER." 



On'lead me to that low grey stone. 
And leave me there to weep alone, i 

Great God ! oh, lift my heart in prayer ! 
For the glorious spirit is not there. 

Not there — oh, not beneath the sod, 
Lzss that rich gift of the living God ; 
Our God is not the God of the dead. 
To Him the living soul has fled. 

That vivid eye and that golden hair. 
The glorified cherub still might wear ; 
That voice with its thrilling melody. 
Might chant in an angel's minstrelsy. 

My child ! look down from thy home on high. 
And chase these tears from the drooping eye ; 
Leave us not to mourn thy untimely death, 
And weep when we think of thy parting breath. 

Thou'rt gone ! and the home of thy infancy 
Seems still unchang'd to the careless eye ; 
But in the lone depths of the weary heart. 
How we felt the light of that home depart ! 

No more shall the voice of thy joyous mirth 
Gladden and brighten that home on earth — 
The buoyant step — the impatient leap, 
Are stilled in the long and quiet sleep. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 61 

No more the elastic, bounding rush 
Of impetuous headlong sport we hush ! 
No more in the tranquil twilight hour 
Subdued, we trace the spirit's power. 

My precious boy ! thou art soaring high 

'Mid untold splendors of the sky ; 

Thy spirit on viewless wings hath flown 

From the spot where the seed was '* in weakness sown." 

" It is raised in power ! " Our Father, God ! 
Thou dost not desert the senseless clod ; 
Thy sun and Thy shower fall not in vain, 
The living but die to rise again ! 



62 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLACE UNDER THE LOSS OF 
VIRTUOUS FRIENDS. 



For I would not have you ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye 
^ sorrow not even as others that have no hope. 



A BEAUTIFUL feature, by which the spirit of our 
religion is distinguished from that of mere philosophy- 
is, that while the latter forbids the indulgence of the 
natural emotions of sorrow, the former presents spe- 
cific sources of relief. The philosopher would say- 
that it is unwise and unmanly to mourn, since our 
grief cannot change the course of events. The Chris- 
tian gives way to the feelings of nature, which prompt 
the bursting tear and sad regret ; but at the same time, 
his sorrow is not without hope. The philosopher would 
bow to the stern necessity of fate, without a struggle ; 
the Christian submits his overflowing heart to the 
gracious will of God. 

The Christian has no faith in that unfeeling stoicism, 
which can part, unmoved, with the cherished and 
the beloved : but if his soul is overwhelmed within 
him, he knows where to look for deliverance. Per- 
haps the truly devout and religious man feels more 
keenly than others the separation of those ties, which 
bind him to his friends ; for the spirit of piety is one 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 63 

of sensibility ; and he who is most susceptible to the 
influences of religion, may receive most deeply the 
impressions of grief. He is alive, moreover, to many 
associations that are not regarded by the thoughtless, 
vi^hich make the heart more delicate and yielding, so 
that the event which passes lightly over others, sinks 
into his soul. But if he is more exposed to the influ- 
ence of sorrow, he has also deeper fountains of con- 
solation. God giveth not as the world giveth, and 
while he touches the heart with the rod of affliction, 
he imparts strength to sustain the blow. 

The sorrow, which arises from the loss of friends, 
is alleviated with peculiar tenderness by the promises 
of the gospel. In how different a light does death 
appear to the Christian, and to him who is without 
hope ! Before life and immortality were brought to 
light by Jesus Christ, death was emphatically the king 
of terrors. When the domestic hearth was invaded 
by his approach, and a loved one snatched away, the 
survivors could only mourn over his vacant place, but 
they knew not whither he was gone. They might 
consume his remains on the funeral pile, but while the 
mingling flames pointed to heaven, they could per- 
ceive no emblem of the spirit which had gone upward. 
They might gather his ashes in an urn ; and in those 
frail relics they saw all that was left of the friend who 
had rejoiced with them in the intercourse of life. 
Their wise men indeed had reasoned, and their poets 
had sung of the Elysian fields where the brave and 
the renowned were happy ; but it was a happiness 
which excited no distinct hopes, and offered no real 
consolation. It seemed more like a mysterious dream 



64 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

of fancy than a definite object of faith. It was a 
beautiful subject of speculation ; but it took no hold of 
the heart. No light from the spiritual world had 
visited their eyes ; no glad tidings of salvation had 
been announced to their ears ; no assurance of a con- 
scious immortality had blessed their souls. They sor- 
rowed as those without hope. 

* Far different are the views with which the Christian 
regards those who, in the pathetic language of inspira- 
tion, " are asleep in Jesus." He looks upon death, 
not as the termination of their existence, but as the 
entrance to a higher state of being. His hopes are 
not buried in the grave, to which he commits the 
remains of mortality, but they follow the spirit which 
hath cast off its fleshly garments, to abodes of life and 
light, which are none the less real because they are 
invisible. Though he leaves the body of the friend, 
who was dear to him, in the dark and narrow house 
appointed for all living, he does not sorrow as those 
who have no hope ; for he believes that as the dust 
returns to the dust as it was, the spirit has returned to 
God who gave it. 

The Christian regards those who have slept in Jesus 
as still objects of remembrance and affection. There 
is a union between heaven and earth. The angels in 
heaven were once mortals on earth ; and mortals on 
earth are to become as angels in heaven. They are 
both members of a spiritual society, in which a spirit- 
ual and blessed fellowship exists. This unites the 
relations of the future world with those of the present* 
It connects the living with the dead. It embraces in 
one spiritual family the loved whom we have lost, and 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 65 

the loved who remain. They who have gone from us 
still live in our memory ; and our spirits commune 
with theirs in the fellowship of love. Though we 
shall see their faces no more in the flesh, the record of 
their virtues is engraved upon our hearts ; and the 
hope that we shall be again united with them, takes 
away the bitterness of grief from the r^eollection of 
the past. While we indulge this hope, it is without 
pain that officious memory paints before us the joys 
and sorrows of other days, till the experience of years 
seems crowded into a moment. We do not refuse to 
dwell upon the events and scenes that we have enjoyed 
or suffered together; which, though faded from the 
mind, are now revived in their original freshness by 
the approach of death, just as his touch often imparts 
to the worn and altered features of age the expression 
of their youth. 

It was said, that we are again to be united with 
those who have slept in Jesus. This hope is an im- 
portant circumstance, in which the sorrow of the 
Christian differs from the sorrow of him who is des- 
titute of the gospel. If there is a prospect of again 
beholding our departed friends, how much is the pain 
of separation mitigated ! The parting of the loved is 
then the parting of a friend, who goes before us on a 
journey which we are soon to commence, and at the 
end of which we shall meet. But may we cherish 
this delightful hope as an alleviation of our sorrow ? 
Do we not deceive ourselves by believing what we 
wish to be true ? On a subject so obscure as the 
peculiar nature of the future life, well does it become 
a creature of the dust to be modest and humble. But 
5 



66 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

if our light is feeble and faint, we ought not to close 
our eyes on that which we may obtain ; and to the 
devout inquirer it will probably appear, that the voice 
of scripture unites with that of reason, to declare that 
the good who have loved each other on earth will 
renew their friendship in heaven. How constantly 
did Paul speak of meeting with the objects of his 
apostolic care and affection, in the day which he 
looked for to consummate his hopes ! " For what," 
asks he, " is our hope and joy, and crown of rejoicing ? 
Are not ye, in the day of the Lord Jesus ? " In the 
midst of his labors he is comforted by the faith that 
they who have been saved by his preaching will 
appear with him, as his joy and crown, at the coming 
of the Lord. 

We are told, moreover, that the blessed in heaven 
are united in ascribing honor and thanksgiving to the 
Saviour, who loved them and died for them. Absent 
from the body, they are present with the Lord. And 
if present together with him, must they not be united 
with each other ? Do not the innumerable company 
of angels, the multitude which no man can number, 
before the throne, form the general assembly and 
church of the redeemed, in which they who were 
united in the bonds of virtuous friendship on earth, are 
united in everlasting love in heaven ? 

Does not reason also permit us to indulge the pleas- 
ing hope of renewing hereafter the holy attachments 
which death has interrupted? Are we not the same 
in character, feeling, and affection, beyond the grave, 
that we are now ? Do not the same arguments, 
which authorize us to hope for a conscious existence 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 67 

of progressive virtue, lead us also to hope that the 
friends whom we have loved will advance with us ? 
Is it an objection, that great diversities of excellence 
and knowledge may prevent a perfect sympathy in the 
minds of those who are reunited after a temporary 
separation? But if sympathy were incompatible with 
superiority, who could hope for communion with the 
Son of God ? And it may be no baseless vision, that 
the blessed, who have gone before, take dehght to 
instruct those who shall come after ; and that our 
minds will receive a holy influence from those purified 
spirits who have preceded us into the regions of eternal 
day. We may learn the mysteries of the unive^rse 
and of God, from those with whom we have here 
taken sweet counsel ; and who have opened their eyes 
on the light of eternity, while we are left to wander 
among the shadows of time. 

With such a faith, we need not be ignorant concern- 
ing those who are asleep. We need not sorrow, as 
those who have no hope. Death is no longer the king 
of terrors, with authority to execute the sentence, 
" Dust thou art, and unto dust thou must return ; '^ but 
a messenger of peace, to bear the souls of the right- 
eous to the presence of God. 



68 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



JESUS CHRIST, THE TRUE SOURCE OF CONSO- 
LATION. 



Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life. 

The scene in which we live is one of perpetual 
^change and disappointment. The morning sun rises 
bright and beautiful, and we promise ourselves a fair 
and a happy day. But before noon the horizon is 
overcast with clouds ; and when we look to the west 
for the gorgeous pictures that are wont to be painted 
on the evening sky, we find that the heavuns are 
veiled in darkness and in gloom. We have enjoyed, 
it may be, a long period of prosperity. The blessings 
of Providence have descended upon us in an uninter- 
rupted and unmingled stream. Our plans have all 
been prospered. Our adventurous enterprises have 
all succeeded. Our hopes, our desires, our vainest 
wishes, have all been gratified. Health, and ease, 
and tranquillity, have been the constant inmates of 
our dwellings ; and the glad voices of contentment 
and joy have responded to each other from every side. 
Our friends have been about us, and our family has 
been a blessed society, bound together by the ties of 
natural affection and mutual esteem. For years, all 
things have gone well with us. We have floated 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 69 

down the stream of time on a current so placid and 
noiseless, that we have been insensible even to our 
progress. We have admired the pleasant scenery 
about us, and caught a glimpse of a still fairer pros- 
pect beyond it, and *have settled down in the quiet 
luxury of unmingled bliss. 

On a sudden, a change comes over this happy scene. 
Affliction, sickness, bereavement, take up their abode 
in our dwelling In the affecting language of scrip- 
ture — ** Beauty is changed into ashes, the oil of joy 
into mourning, and the garment of praise into the 
spirit of heaviness." God changeth the countenances 
of friends and relatives, and sendeth them away. A 
venerated parent, whose head was silvered by the 
frosts of many winters, is removed from the sight of 
the children, whom she led up along the paths of 
infancy and childhood with a mother's tenderness, and 
whom she guided and counselled, in their maturer 
years, with a mother's instinctive wisdom. A husband 
is snatched away from the bosom of his family ; his 
wife is a widow, and his children are fatherless. Par- 
ents are called to mourn the early departure of a child 
who, by its innocence and young affection, had twined 
itself about their hearts, and whose dissolution was felt 
like the dismembering of their own frame. One after 
another we are all called to drink of the bitter cup of 
bereavement, and to resign those respected and beloved 
ones, in whom we had treasured up our hopes. There 
is no exemption from this common lot of humanity. 
The tears that we once shed with such a true and 
ready sympathy for the sorrows of others, at last fall 
warm and frequent for our own. Observation is now 



70 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

turned into experience, and we feel that we never 
knew before the anguish of a bereaved heart. 

Such being the universal and inevitable lot, man- 
kind have been led in every age to look around them 
for support and comfort. They called upon Nature, 
and besought her, by her marvellous and mysterious 
agency, to give them knowledge and relief. But 
Nature, though she every where displays the marks of 
a designing mind and a contriving hand, could not 
tell why the wheels of life stood still, or whether they 
would ever again be put in motion. They looked up 
to the heavens, and conjured the stars, that never faint 
in their watches, to send down their benign influences, 
to impart light to the benighted mind and peace to the 
troubled heart. But the bright orbs above, though 
they move on as if they were animated and guided 
by an angel's power, were deaf to the cry of their 
worshippers, and could afford them no intelligence 
concerning the spirit that once tenanted that cold and 
lifeless form. They applied to the oracles of wisdom 
and to the sages of a lettered age for succor and conso- 
lation. But the responses of Philosophy were as chill 
and cheerless as the marble forehead that lay before 
them. The best consolations that she had to offer were, 
that separation and bereavement were inevitable ; that 
tears and lamentations were unavailing ; that there 
could be no remedy nor relief; and that therefore it was 
wong and impious to grieve. How cold and comfortless 
must these suggestions have appeared to the mourner, as 
he bent over the lifeless remains of his friend I Well 
might the Roman emperor say, when these vain com- 
forts were administered to him, that so far from sooth- 
ing they served only to aggravate his grief. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 71 

We have seen how inefficacious and unsatisfactory 
are the consolations of nature, of reason, and of human 
wisdom. We have drank of their waters, but have 
found that we have not drawn from the wells of peace 
and salvation. To whom then shall we go ? With the 
enthusiastic confidence of Peter we may exclaim, 
** Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
of eternal life." Yes, in our moments of lonely sor- 
row we must leave our earthly supports, and have 
recourse to an heavenly comforter. We must listen 
to the teachings of Jesus, to the gracious and soothing 
words of him who spake as never man spake, and we 
shall find rest and peace to our souls. We shall attest 
the efficacy and recognize the value of the Christian 
faith, and find by happy experience that " consolation 
aboundeth by Christ." 

Let the mourner open the New Testament, and turn 
to the simple and affecting narrative of the resurrec- 
tion of Lazarus. His sickness, the anxiety of his sis- 
ters and their grief at his death, are portrayed with 
such minuteness of detail, and with such exact confor- 
mity to truth and nature, that we almost feel ourselves 
transported through the interval of ages to the little 
village of Bethany. We are present at the solemn 
parting scene. We weep with the mourners. We 
mingle with the sad group who follow the departed to 
his dark resting-place, and we see the stone rolled 
upon the mouth of the sepulchre. And now is there 
one of that concourse who stand around the tomb, into 
whose mind the thought has ever entered, that that 
body, which he had seen folded in the garments of 
death and deposited among the relics of mortality 



72 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

shall again be instinct with life and motion ? Let him 
come but a few days hence, and he will see gathered 
around the spot another multitude. They have not 
come merely to weep there; for curiosity, and ex- 
pectation, and an undefined hope, may be traced in 
their anxious countenances. There is one among them 
who was not present at the interment. The deep 
emotion which he is unable to suppress indicates that 
he was a friend of the departed ; and the intent gaze 
with which all eyes regard him, justifies the suspicion 
that he is something more than an ordinary personage. 
The authority with which he speaks, *' Take ye away 
the stone," raises still higher the expectation of the 
crowd. Why should he wish to behold the features 
of him who has been dead four days already ? He 
does not wish to behold them. It is not an idle curi- 
osity, nor even the call of friendship, which has sum- 
moned him hither, and now governs his conduct. It 
is to manifest the power of God, that he stands by that 
opened tomb, and after lifting his eyes, and breathing 
his prayer to heaven, cries, *' Lazarus, come forth !" 
And behold ! he that was dead comes forth. The 
powers of nature resume their accustomed functions. 
The current of life rushes once more through his veins. 
The pale visage is suffused with the bloom of recovered 
existence. The eyelid is raised ; and instead of that 
dim and heavy ball which it before concealed, the 
bright index of intelligence beams full upon you. The 
rigid muscles relax ; the stiff limbs become pliant ; 
and the reanimated man moves forward to salute his 
astonished friends ! 

By the resurrection of Lazarus, the declarations of 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 73 

the Saviour are fulfilled, and the hopes of the believer 
are confirmed. Faith is changed into reality. We 
know, that the mysterious change through which we 
pass at death does not affect the intellectual and 
spiritual part of our nature. We feel confident that 
Jesus hath abolished death, and brought life and im- 
mortality to light. We are cheered in the time of 
bereavement, and supported in the hour of dissolution, 
by his blessed assurance, *' Because I live, ye shall 
live also." 



74 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



'^ESUS WEPT." 



Draw near, ye weary, bowed, and broken-hearted, 
Ye onward travellers to a peaceful bourne ; 

Ye, from whose path the light hath all departed, 
Ye who are left in solitude to mourn. 

Though o'er your spirits hath the storm-cloud swept, 

Sacred are sorrow's tears since ** Jesus wept ! " 

The bright and spotless heir of endless glory, 
Wept for the woes of those he came to save ; 

And angels wondered when they heard the story. 
That he who conquered death wept o'er the grave. 

For 't was not when his lonely watch he kept 

In dark Gethsemane, that '* Jesus wept." 

But with the friends he loved, whose hope had perish'd, 
. The Saviour stood ; and through his bosom rush'd 
A tide of sympathy for those he cherish'd. 

While from his eyes the burning tear-drop gush'd ; 
And bending o'er the tomb where Lazarus slept, 
In agony of spirit, " Jesus wept ! " . 

Lo ! Jesus' power the sleep of death has broken. 
And wiped the tear from sorrow's drooping eye ; 

Look up, ye mourners, hear what he hath spoken — 
** He that believes on me, shall never die ! " 

Through faith and love your spirits shall be kept ; 

Hope brighter grew on earth, when '* Jesus wept." 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 75 



THE IMPROVEMENT TO BE DERIVED FROM EX- 
AMPLES OF SUDDEN DEATH. =^ 

As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 

Religion directs our attention to death, not that we 
may be depressed and subdued by its terrors, but that 
we may triumph over them ; that we may learn to 
anticipate the grave with calmness, and may descend 
into it with hope, and even joy. Religion calls us to 
think of death, because, though at first alarming, it 
has a healing virtue, and purifies and elevates the 
mind in which it dwells. Fear not then to converse 
with the tomb. To that solemn region we are all 
hastening ; and whilst our minds are unclouded by 
disease, whilst reflection can avail us, let us approach 
it, and hear the voice of wisdom which issues from its 
recesses. 

* These extracts the compiler has been permitted to select 
from the manuscript of a distinguished clergyman, which had 
incidentally come into his hands. They are taken from a dis- 
course delivered on a Sabbath following the sudden death of a 
valued friend and parishioner, and of a useful citizen ; the in- 
teresting circumstances of which are improved with the feeling 
and eloquence they were suited to inspire. 



76 



AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



The scriptures labor, if I may so speak, to give us 
deep impressions of the brief and uncertain duration 
of human life. On no subject are stronger, more 
touching, more awakening illustrations employed. How 
very striking and affecting the metaphor of the text : 
'' As for man, his days are as grass." Man is com- 
pared to a feeble blade in the field, which bends with 
every wind ; which is now swept away by the storm ; 
now trodden under foot by the traveller ; now cut 
down in a moment by the husbandman ; now assailed 
at the root by the secret worm ; and now withered by 
blasts too subtile for the eye to discern. But man is 
not only compared to the grass. " As a flower of the 
field, so he flourisheth." Here he is likened to the 
flower — the frailest and most perishable production of 
vegetable nature ; which opens its bosom to the morn- 
ing light, and delights us by its fragrance and beauty ; 
but at night we see it shrivelled and perished; its 
head drooping ; its bright hues faded ; and its leaves 
fallen to the earth, or scattered through the air. The 
scorching or chilling wind has passed over it, and it is 
gone ; and the place that knew it will know it no mqre. 
In the scriptures we find other illustrations, equally 
striking, of the vanity of human life. And I need not 
repeat to you the evidences which such passages de- 
rive from experience. On this point, all ages and 
nations bear concurrent testimony. Generation after 
generation, in unbroken succession, have descended to 
the tomb, and swelled the proofs of human frailty. 
Every object we see has some association with death. 
We are surrounded on every side with the labors of 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 77 

the dead. Our possessions, our institutions, our 
language and religion, have descended to us from 
the dead. Multitudes whom we have known, many 
beloved friends, have gone to join the dead. Every 
day erects a new trophy to the powers of the grave ; 
every day speaks to us of mortality. 

But among the multiplied proofs of our frailty, none 
are so striking as the examples of sudden death which 
we are occasionally called to witness : and by which a 
wise, and I will add a benevolent providence intends 
to rouse an unreflecting world. In protracted disease, 
man seems to struggle, with a temporary success, 
against the last foe ; and though he falls, yet his pro- 
tracted defeat, his endurance of the painful conflict, 
lead us to speak of the power of life. But when 
arrested in the midst of an active career; when cut 
down in the moment of vigor and hope ; when levelled 
by a single blow to the earth, how impotent, how frail 
does man appear! In sudden death, the display of 
human frailty is almost too powerful for our faculties. 
We can hardly believe that life has so suddenly fled, 
that the transition from health to the tomb has been so 
awfully short. As we look on the motionless body, 
over which death has obtained this dreadful triumph, 
we cannot separate from it the active power and sen- 
sibility which, but a moment past, it possessed. The 
breast still seems to heave ; the lip seems ready to 
speak, and assure us that the report of death is a 
delusion. We cannot realize that a friend is so soon 
gone. But time brings home the truth to our hearts, 
and unless we are insensible, a solemn feeling of our 
own frailty takes possession of our minds. 



78 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

On the last Sunday, I spoke of the possibility of 
sudden death. I observed, that we have not the prom- 
ise even of an hour ; that at night, when we sink into 
sleep, that image of death, we have no pledge that 
we shall awake again on the earth. Little did I 
imagine, that these truths were to receive in a few 
hours a most solemn verification. Little did I think, 
that one who heard, one whose health was as firm and 
whose hopes of life as ardent as my own, was, before 
another morning, to receive the stroke of death, and 
to be extended before my eyes a lifeless corpse. 
When, on the next morning, my slumbers were dis- 
turbed by the sad tidings that one of our number had 
gone, it seemed to me a dream ; and for a moment I 
put from me as an impossibility, what I had admonished 
you to feel as a most valuable truth. But my incredu- 
lity soon gave way to solemn conviction. I saw, I felt, 
that one whose friendship and kindness liad given him 
many claims to my esteem; a most valuable member 
of this society ; a most useful citizen ; one who sus- 
tained and filled with affectionate assiduity the tender- 
est relations of domestic life ; one whose ready zeal 
was pressed into the service of almost every public 
institution ; was torn from us in a moment, before one 
fear for his safety had prepared the mind for his de- 
parture. He left this house at the close of the last 
Sabbath, with a step as firm, a form as erect, and 
anticipations as unchecked by apprehension, as any 
of us. He spoke of the discourse he had heard ; of 
its application to a recent danger which he had es- 
caped, and which threatened immediate death. He 
spoke of the engagements of the week, on which he 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 79 

had entered. In the evening he was occupied in ar- 
rangements for the approaching anniversary of a 
benevolent institution ; and we have reason to think 
that before midnight the hand of death was upon him. 
He was called without warning; called in the midst of 
life. No infirmities or pains sloped his way to the 
grave. His descent was almost instantaneous to the 
tomb. He was taken from the midst of useful labors. 
He was taken from the midst of a rising family. 
Time was not given him to say farewell ; to receive 
the last offices of affection ; to give those tokens of 
love which survivors cherish in such tender remem- 
brance. He was gone, before friendship could extend 
its supporting hand, or skill could apply its resources 
and mitigations. He was left in health ; he was found 
drawing the last breath. He had travelled the gloomy 
vale alone, and with a speed which outstrips imagina- 
tion. What an astonishing change ! this hour, partak- 
ing of all the enjoyments of life ; the next, struggling 
with the last pain. This hour, vigorous, efficient, 
giving the pledge of future usefulness; the next, un- 
able to raise an arm, or to rise from the couch on 
which he was extended. At night, full of motion, and 
in the morning, lifeless, inert clay. The ear closed 
on the well-known voice ; the eye on the light of 
heaven, and every familiar and beloved scene. At 
night, the countenance illumined with thought and 
emotion, and his presence the delight of his friends ; 
in the morning, that countenance fixed, pallid, inex- 
pressive, and that body removed from sight, or seen 
only with sorrow. At night, an inhabitant of this 
world, a possessor of its wealth and comforts, bound 



80 ' AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

to it by many ties, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, 
a friend. In the morning, gone for ever; placed be- 
yond the reach of earthly kindness ; every earthly tie 
broken ; every earthly possession abandoned, and the 
spirit entered on an untried being. Changes so great, 
in so short a time, almost overwhelm the mind, and 
disturb the exercise of understanding. We can scarcely 
believe what we see. 

As I stood by the body of our friend, doubt mingled 
with my sorrow. I spoke to him, and could hardly 
feel that my voice was lost in air. I pressed his cold 
hand, and could hardly realize that the pressure would 
no more be returned. But he is gone ; gone to be 
seen no more in this world. I look to the seat which 
he so constantly filled, and where on these occasions I 
have often met his fixed eye, and he is gone. I enter 
his house, which was always open to welcome me, and 
in a thousand signs I see that he is no more. In the 
concourse of business, he will be met no more. His 
zeal, which never shrunk from any work of usefulness, 
will no longer be our resource and aid ; his day is 
finished, when we thought it not half expired ; his sun 
is set at noon ; his labors are ended ; he is gone to his 
account. 

To us, my friends, who were fellow-worshippers 
with the deceased ; who so lately received with him 
the admonitions of religion, to us, this event speaks 
loudly. Let it not speak in vain. It calls us to con- 
verse with the tomb ; to meditate on our frailty, and 
especially to feel our exposure to sudden death. This 
impression is one of the last we receive : and yet how 
needed and how salutary ! In health, we place death 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 



81 



at a distance ; we have, as we imagine, a resource of 
strength which cannot be easily exhausted. But who 
that knows the hunnan franie, does not know the narrow 
partition which separates between life and death ? An 
artery, that thin, slender texture, which throbs beneath 
the touch, holds in trust the life of man. A rupture 
in this frail vessel is enough for our destruction. A 
little blood diverted from its ordinary channel, quenches 
at once the vital spark ; the very nutriment of our 
frame thus becomes the cause of immediate death. 
Who can place his hand on the beating heart, and not 
feel the slightness of the bulwark which defends the 
fount of life ? And shall such beings promise them- 
selves many days ? In addition to the delicacy of our 
frames, we are exposed to immediate death by almost 
every object which surrounds us. Every element may 
be converted by God into a weapon of destruction. 
The air which we breathe, now charged with poisonous 
vapor and now precipitated in storms, often destroys 
the life which it has sustained. In the ocean many 
find a sudden grave. The flame which warms and 
cheers, often passes its limits, and involves the dwelling 
,and its tenants in immediate ruin. The cloud sends 
death on wings rapid as thought. The fleet animal 
who carries us has our lives at his disposal. We are 
never safe. The sword hangs by a hair over our 
heads. Whilst we seem secure, some secret obstruc- 
tion is gathering strength in the seat of life. The thin 
partition which removes us from death may be wearing 
away. This head, now crowded with so many schemes, 
may be smitten with sudden apoplexy. This heart, 
6 



82 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

which beats with so many hopes, may be contracted 
with sudden and mortal spasms. 

My friends, I have dwelt on ygur exposure to sud- 
den death, not to fill your mipds with gloomy images, 
but to rouse you to religious reflections, to self-exami- 
nation, and to a course of life which will make death, 
whether sudden or long-deferred, an unspeakable 
blessing. I have wished to lead you to a more serious 
inquiry into your characters. You have seen your 
frailty; that on this night, or at a season as little 
threatening as this night, your lives may be required 
of you. The great question is, are you prepared for 
this event ? are you willing to appear as you now are 
before God ? is there no chano;e which must be made ? 
Do I speak to none, whose consciences remind them 
of God forgotten or disobeyed ? of known duty habitu- 
ally neglected ? of known sin habitually practised ? 
of life spent without reflection and whhout regard to 
the acknowledged revelation of God ? of social rela- 
tions unfaithfully sustained ? of unjust gains ? of in- 
temperate indulgence ? Let me advise and urge you 
to break off* your sins by immediate repentance. The 
present may be the last admonition. You cannot 
promise yourselves the poor privileges of a dying bed. 
Begin to retrieve the past ; to live to God ; to be 
blessings to society ; to work, for the night is at hand. 
If death be always near, and may so suddenly overtake 
you, then let the whole of life be a preparation for 
death. This is no impracticable precept. Preparation 
for death does not consist exclusively, as has sometimes 
been thought, in immediate acts of piety, and much 
less in abstinence from the active pursuits and inno- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 83 

cent pleasures of the present state. It consists in 
what may be our present business ; in the discharge 
of our various duties toward God, our neighbors, and 
ourselves ; and is always proportioned to the degree of 
improvement which we have made in a sober, righ- 
teous, and godly life. At all times and in all places, 
it is possible to prepare for death. Every Christian 
duty, no matter when or where performed ; every act 
of uprightness ; every benevolent purpose and deed ; 
every candid judgment ; every forgiving disposition ; 
every temperate and grateful reception of God's bless- 
ings ; every resignation of ourselves to God's will ; 
every conscientious labor ; every exercise of do- 
mestic virtue ; every restraint of our passions ; every 
conquest over temptation ; every service to the cause 
of religion and virtue ; every sacrifice of ease and 
interest to truth and justice and others' happiness ; 
in one word, every thought, word, feeling, or action, 
which is regulated by a sense of duty, which expresses 
a Christian spirit, which contributes to the improvement 
of our characters, enters into and constitutes a part of 
our preparation for that solemn change, to which we 
are constantly exposed. Be this your serious concern. 
Do not forget your characters and your future interest 
in pursuit of a world which may so suddenly vanish 
from you. 



84 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE CHRISTIAN'S VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
Death, where is thy sting ! Grave, where is thy victory ! 

The victory which God has given us over death is 
illustrated by St. Paul in one of the most interesting 
and impressive chapters in the New Testament. He 
insists on the fact of our Lord's real and literal resur- 
rection ; and infers from it the final and literal resur- 
rection of all mankind. He defends and illustrates 
the subject as a fundamental doctrine of the gospel. 

In considering some of the means by which God 
gives us this victory, we may remark, 

1. That he has provided for it in the original con- 
stitution of the human mind, by enabling us to find 
support and constancy under the pressure of present 
evil, in our anticipations of future good. 

The mere fact of our immortality could do nothing 
of course to sustain us in the hour of death, unless it 
were revealed ; and even if it were revealed, it would 
still be to no purpose, unless our minds were capable 
of appreciating and applying the doctrine. It is not 
enough that we believe in the abstract doctrine of a 
future state. We must be able, in some sense, to 
make this future state present to us, and enter upon it 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 85 

as it were by anticipation, so that what we hope may- 
sustain us under what we endure. A wise and merci- 
ful Creator has provided for this in the original consti- 
tution of man ; a principle which we continually see 
operating, even in the affairs of this world, to soothe 
the pains and lighten the burdens of human life. 
We not only hope for good to come, but this hope 
enables us to enter on the actual enjoyment of this 
good as it were by anticipation. We hope to meet a 
friend, and this hope brings up the image of our friend ; 
and we feel for the moment as if he were before us, 
and the thought is attended with something of the joy 
of the real meeting. I verily believe, that but for this 
power which God has given us to borrow from the 
future, the troubles of life would be insupportable. 

What is it that cheers the toil of the indefatigable 
student, but the hope of the knowledge and distinction 
his acquirements will give him, and which he already 
begins to enjoy by anticipation ? What is it that braces 
the nerves of the sick man to submit with such firm- 
ness to the severest and most painful remedies, but the 
hope of returning health, which he already begins to 
enjoy by anticipation ? What is it that keeps up the 
spirits of the weary traveller, when he considers the 
fatigues and dangers of the way that separates him 
from his home, but the thought of that home and its 
delights, which he already begins to enjoy by antici- 
pation ? And so it is with the pilgrim of eternity. 
Oh ! it is a glorious prerogative of man, that his im- 
mortal part can go out from amidst the circumstances 
of gloom and sorrow by which the mortal is encom- 
passed and oppressed, and live in other scenes. The 



86 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

soul of the dying Christian is not dying with his body; 
but is back in memory among the happy scenes of a 
well-spent life ; or is mingling in affectionate embraces 
with the friends it is to leave ; or has already entered 
by anticipation on the joys of heaven. The valley of 
the shadow of death is before him ; but before his feet 
have begun to descend, his mind has crossed it, and is 
living and rejoicing in fields of perpetual verdure and 
brightness, that have met his vision, and stretch in- 
terminably beyond. 

2. Another means by which God has given us the 
victory over death is by inspiring us with entire con- 
fidence in the wisdom and goodness of his dispensa- 
tions. 

In this respect our heavenly Father has proceeded 
as any other parent would in regard to his children. 
He has taken measures to deserve and obtain our en- 
tire confidence. Without this confidence in him per- 
sonally, of course we could have none in his promises, 
or in the scriptures which contain those promises. We 
pause then, and ponder on the ways of God, from 
which alone we are to infer his character; and we 
find them every where marked, and strongly marked, 
by an essential and inexhaustible benignity. Nay, we 
find that a principal reason why we do not make more 
of his blessings is, that they are so common ; and a 
principal reason why we make so much of his judg- 
ments is, that they are so rare. Evil, to be sure, is 
sometimes incident to the arrangements and organiza- 
tions which God has made in the constitution of nature. 
But in no one instance can it be shown to be the 
ultimate object of such arrangements and organiza- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 87 

tions ; while on the other hand good can be shown to 
be the uUimate object in instances without number. 
Besides, when the evil comes, even with our very lim- 
ited experience and observation, we can almost always 
see that it tends to some good result, and is necessary 
to our final happiness ; and of course, instead of being 
an objection to the divine benevolence it is another 
indication of it. And what though in a few cases we 
may be unable to discern the object of a painful and 
afflictive dispensation ? Is it at all wonderful that the 
creatures of a day, to whom the simplest events in 
nature are so many miracles, — is it at all wonderful 
that we should be unable at times to fathom the pur- 
poses of infinite wisdom ? And at such times, is it too 
much to expect of us, that we should show an implicit 
confidence in a Being, who certainly can have no mo- 
tive to give us unnecessary pain, and who has proved 
himself in so many ways our friend and benefactor ? 
We are ready enough to put the same sort of confi- 
dence in our fellow- men, as far as their power extends. 
If an approved physician prescribes a painful and ap- 
parently dangerous remedy, we do not hesitate to apply 
it, though unable ourselves to discern any good purpose 
it can answer ; because, we say, that this is a subject 
on which the physician is much better qualified to 
judge than we are. Bewildered and lost in the passes 
and defiles of a mountainous country, we procure a 
guide, who leads us on through by-ways and dark pas- 
sages, that seem but to involve us more and more. 
Still we do not hesitate to follow him, because we say 
that this is a subject on which the guide must know 
much more than we can. To be sure, the power of 



88 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

man stops at the grave, and we cannot therefore trust 
him to deliver us from that. But we can trust the 
Almighty ; for the dead as well as the living are in his 
hands. The last words of the dying believer will be : 
'' Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me ; thy 
rod, and thy staff, they comfort me." 

3. Again, God gives us the victory over death, by 
leading us to take proper views of the nature and pur- 
pose of death itself. 

Physically speaking, there seems to be no reason to 
suppose death so great an evil as our imaginations are 
wont to make it. A person who recovers from an 
acute disease probably suffers much more from that 
disease than he would have done, if he had died. 
Many die without any signs of pain at all, as if falling 
into a swoon or deep sleep. Nay, in some diseases, 
ease and insensibility are reckoned the most fatal 
symptoms; and the approach of death is known, not 
by an increase, but by a total cessation of pain. 

What is there then in being dead, from which an 
enlightened Christian should shrink ? Man is created 
with powers and capacities capable of unlimited ex- 
pansion and improvement ; and for wise reasons is set 
to begin an endless career of advancement in a lower 
state of being, than that on which he is afterwards to 
live and act; just as a child is set to learn his first 
lessons in an inferior school, and is afterwards taken 
out of that school and placed in a higher. Destined 
therefore to live and act in a higher state of being than 
the present, there must of course come a time when 
we shall pass into it ; ther^ must come a moment of 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 89 

transition, and this moment of transition is what we 
call death. It is not extinction, or suffering, or pun- 
ishment : but transition merely. Our characters will 
remain the same afterwards as before ; and of course 
our principal sources of happiness or misery will re- 
main the same. Death is merely a transition from 
one mode of existence to another. It is the mortal 
putting on the immortal. This to the Christian, we 
should think, would be an object of desire, of sincere 
and heart- felt desire, and not of terror and dread. If 
it should be objected, that no one can know what 
awaits himself or his friends after death, it is enough 
to say in reply, that we do not know what awaits us 
before death. If we continue to live in this world, it 
must depend on the mercy of God whether we are 
happy or miserable ; or if we die, we have but to con- 
fide in that same mercy. There is no extravagance 
therefore in what the apostle has said : ** We that are 
in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; not that 
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mor- 
tality might be swallowed up of life." 

4. Lastly, we are expressly taught, that God gives 
us this victory over death through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

This is true in several respects. In the first place 
because though many wise and good Jews and heathens 
held to the principles we have advanced, it was merely 
as matter of speculation, or at best of conjecture and 
hope ; and it is only through our Lord Jesus Christ 
that we know them on the authority of an accredited 
and inspired teacher. Secondly, by our Lord's own 
resurrection, he has given assurance, an earnest as it 



90 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

were, the [evidence of example and fact, for the final 
resurrection of all mankind. This was necessary. For 
after all that reason could do, there was something so 
strange, and startling, and contrary to the report of 
our senses and all experience, in this doctrine of a 
resurrection, that we needed the evidence of example 
and fact, to remove all feeling of its impossibility and 
incongruity ; and give us, instead of the faint hope of 
the deist, a living and practical conviction. Thirdly, 
through the religion which our Lord has given us, he 
would lead us on to those higher attainments and exer- 
cises in virtue and piety, which, by the effect they 
have on the temper, never fail to inspire an unwaver- 
ing confidence in God, and the final and happy issue 
of all his dispensations. Our victory over death de- 
pends on the moral and religious proficiency we have 
made ; and this again depends on the instructions and 
motives set before us by our Lord Jesus Christ ; and 
of course it is through him that we conquer. Lastly, 
our Lord may be said to have purchased us, as it were, 
by the sacrifices he has made on our account ; and by 
the character he still bears as our intercessor and advo- 
cate with the Father. This removes the only remain- 
ing objection which the good man, conscious of his 
imperfections, might otherwise feel to going alone and 
unsupported into the presence of a Being whom all 
have offended ; before whom even the angels are not 
pure. Trusting in what his Saviour has done for him 
and in the power of his intercession, the grave has no 
terrors for the sincere and devout Christian; his tri- 
umph, his victory is complete. 

How great and constant should be our gratitude to 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 91 

God for this victory, which he has given us over the 
last, most dreaded and worst-looking of our foes ! Let 
us cherish and cultivate an undoubting faith in those 
hopes and expectations of another life which alone 
can deliver from that spiritual bondage which the fear 
of death inspsires. Let us guard against and repel all 
temptations to skepticism on this subject, as we would 
guard against and repel temptations to sin or self- 
destruction. Above all, let us form and accustom our- 
selves to holiness ; for when the scriptures say, that 
without holiness we cannot see the Lord, they mean, 
not only that we shall not see him hereafter, but that 
we cannot see him here ; and our troubles will unman 
and overwhelm us, unless we can see in the hand that 
afflicts us the hand of a Father. When called to do 
it, in the Providence of God, let us follow our friends 
with a pious and unwavering trust to those peaceful 
abodes where the dead sleep ; yielding them up, with- 
out a repining thought, into the hands of Him who has 
been pleased to make the grave the gate of Heaven; 
Perhaps our loss has been great, peculiarly great ; but 
then it is the measure and nothing but the measure of 
the blessing we have had. In the midst of our sorrow, 
therefore, let us not forget devoutly to thank God, not 
indeed that we have lost such a friend, but that "we 
have had such a friend to lose." And when our own 
frames are sinking under age or infirmity, may our 
spirits be sustained by that noble confidence, of which 
the apostle speaks : " Therefore, we are always confi- 
dent, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, 
we are absent from the Lord. We are confident, I 
say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and 
to be present with the Lord." 



92 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE OCCASIONS AND REMEDY OF EXCESSIVE GRIEF. 
When my heart is overwhehned, lead me to the Rock, that is higher than I. 

There are sorrows in which the heart may be 
overwhelmed. There are forms and circumstances. of 
grief, in the remembrance of which even the most 
submissive child of God may say, " I had fainted, 
except 1 had trusted to see the goodness of the Lord." 
But expressions like these are to be applied only to the 
severest calamities. They can seldom be employed 
because, happily, the sufferings they denote are un- 
usual. In the ordinary trials of life we are not per- 
mitted to yield to overwhelming grief. Such a state 
would be disproportioned to the nature of the affliction, 
and inconsistent with our character as Christians and 
as men. The loss of property, unless involving a loss 
of reputation, which, unregretted and unatoned for, 
admits no solace ; the disappointment of some earthly 
hope, of our vanity, ambition, or any selfish passion, 
and even bereavement itself, in its most usual forms, 
would scarcely justify that desolation of the spirit, 
which seems implied in the expression of the royal 
Psalmist. Nor are there many who are in much 
danger from such a state. The great proportion of 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 93 

mankind are impatient of trouble. It stays not long 
enough to overwhelm them. They are eager to seek 
relief, as well from its monitions as its pains, in the 
business or the amusements of life ; and one of the 
hardest works of religion is to teach some men how to 
feel ; to persuade them to regard the operation of the 
Lord, and not to despise his chastening. But even 
where there exists a greater sensibility, the common 
trials which our heavenly Father appoints are com- 
patible with an inward tranquillity and the right dis- 
charge of duty. We should be grateful that it is so. 
Otherwise, the wheels of life would stop ; the order of 
families would be disturbed ; and the affairs of the 
world would be exposed to perpetual interruption. 

What then are the afflictions that overwhelm the 
soul ? It may be difficult to describe them. They 
will be more easily understood than uttered ; for they 
are those in which the heart only can know its own 
bitterness, and the stranger cannot intermeddle. They 
are those in which Jehovah sometimes appears in his 
mysterious and incomprehensible majesty ; in his 
character as sovereign and judge, '• creating darkness 
and evil," rather than peace ; when his way is in the 
sea, and his footsteps in the deep ; when in the lan- 
guage of the desponding Psalmist, *' deep calleth unto 
deep;*' one wave of sorrow succeeds another; and 
" all God's billows are rolling over us." There are 
instances when all the divine chastisements seem at 
once inflicted ; and the record of domestic calamity, 
like the scroll beheld in the vision of the prophet, is 
inscribed, " within and without, with lamentation and 
mourning and woe." Have you never known the 



94 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

pious and affectionate father, the tender and devoted 
mother, called to part in quick succession with the 
children of their love ? with the fair objects of their 
dependence and hope ? When so frequent and so 
speedy were the ravages of death, that the turf could 
scarcely harden over their recently-opened tomb, 
before it would be again and again disturbed to re- 
ceive another and another, till, within a few weeks, 
almost a whole family shall be laid together in the 
dark and narrow house ; and the dwelling, that but a 
little before was the seat of domestic cheerfulness, 
affection, and hope, is turned to solitude and gloom? 
Let us bless God that we are not often called to wit- 
ness such sad reverses. Yet, when the pestilence 
walks in darkness, and contagion multiplies its victims, 
such are no uncommon displays of the divine judg- 
ments. Amidst too those awful desolations of nature, 
sometimes occurring in regions less favored than our 
own — in the whirlwind, the earthquake, or the fall- 
ing mountain — instances have been known, when 
scarcely one was spared of a numerous house ; 
or if a solitary survivor of his family, he may find 
himself without a friend to impart comfort to his 
desolated soul. To those also who, even amidst the 
happiest communities, are conversant with the chil- 
dren of affliction, examples are never long wanting to 
exercise their painful sympathies ; in which poverty 
and sickness combine, perhaps, with the inflictions of 
vice and of an upbraiding conscience, to give to be- 
reavement a peculiar and aggravated distress. It 
would be easy to portray scenes which many may 
have witnessed; and in comparison with which the 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 95 

more common allotments of heaven seem as tender 
mercies. 

But there are other forms of overwhelming sorrow. 
Here is a confiding and devoted wife mourning in the 
bitterness of unrequited affection, the cruelty, the 
unfaithfulness, or the intemperance of her husband. 
Here is a pious and anxious parent weeping in anguish 
over a thankless, profligate, irreclaimable child. Or, 
sad and unnatural reverse, because it violates the 
order of nature, here is a conscientious, dutiful child 
put to shame and confusion by the unworthiness of a 
parent. These are pangs, only the sharper, because 
they are secret ; in which, as the grief may not be 
uttered, it cannot ask for solace. To whom indeed 
but to God himself can we look for consolation, when 
the choicest gifts of his goodness, all which was de- 
signed for blessing, and joy, and hope, become the 
occasion of our deep humiliation or unutterable dis- 
tress. It is then surely, if ever, we must say, " My 
soul, wait thou only upon God. My expectation is 
from him." 

We must leave to experience, or rather, we will 
hope, only to imagination or sympathy, a nearer view 
of these appalling trials. Yet there is one which has 
been untouched, but through which the most precious 
hopes and the fairest prospects of life may be laid in 
ruins. To say nothing then of friendships once 
fondly cherished, changed to rancorous, unrelented 
hatred, have you not known the light of reason extin- 
guished ; the finest faculties confounded ; the imagina- 
tion darkened or presenting only images of despair ; 
and all that made a wife, a child, a parent or brother 



96 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

precious, turned to worse than uselessness ; to thicker 
darkness than of the valley of the shadow of death ? 
Then you have known something of the sorrows by 
which the heart n)ay be overwhelmed. 

But you ask, is it permitted to the Christian to yield 
to overwhelming grief? Is there not enough in the 
great truths which he professes at all times to sustain 
him ? And must there not be a criminal defect of 
faith and hope in yielding thus to heart-breaking sor- 
row ? True it is, that he whose heart is fixed, trusting 
in God, will never be confounded. No evil tidings, 
no calamities, however appalling, can prevail over him 
who believes in God, and who believes also in Christ. 
Amidst the most disastrous reverses in his person, his 
possessions, or friendships, his eye of faith will be on 
him who can sustain him ; and his language, and the 
feeling of his whole soul will be, " God is my refuge ; 
a very present help in the day of trouble. Therefore 
will I not fear, though the earth be removed." Nay, 
he will even say with the royal sufferer, *' Though he 
slay me, yet will I trust in him." 

But in inquiring how far a state of dejection can 
ever be compatible with the submission that under every 
circumstance becomes the Christian, we must allow 
not only for the general infirmities of our nature, but 
for the particular diversities of our natural tempera- 
ment. Some, by original constitution, by early dis- 
cipline, and the course of their lives, inuring them to 
sorrow, can look on all adversity with a steady eye. 
Their strength is as the strength of brass ; and they 
would regard the tenderness of grief as an unmanly 
weakness. Such persons, even without the aid of 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 97 

religion, are able to endure severe calamities with a 
firmness that minds more susceptible, but more also 
under the influence of piety, would with th^ utmost 
difficulty sustain. But with me, it is scarcely a ques- 
tion whether such a temperament be desirable. Who 
would be willing to sacrifice to the pride of philosophy 
or to '* a monstrous perfection," the best and tenderest 
feelings of the heart, which are the handmaids of vir- 
tue ; which unite us with the angels of mercy ; with 
the spirits of the good ; with our compassionate 
Saviour, who gave himself for us ; and with the God, 
who is love. Stoicism or hardness of heart is no part 
of the Christian. It is not the soil in which Christian 
graces can flourish. The religion of Christ is emi- 
nently the religion of the heart. It cherishes and 
improves the finest sensibilities of the soul. In the 
example of its divine author, who himself was 
'^ grieved," who was '* troubled in spirit," who wept at 
the grave of his friend and in the prospect of the ruin 
of Jerusalem, we learn that we may weep. We see 
at once the sensibility which his religion permits, and 
the consolation which faith in his religion opens to us. 
He tells us that we may sorrow ; only not as those 
who are without hope. We may grieve ; but we must 
not murmur. Nay, like his own apostles, we may be 
cast down, but not in despair ; mourn before God, but 
never charge him foolishly. 

The gospel teaches us to find our solace, not in a 
proud stoicism, or a vain philosophy, that can never 
purify the heart; not by doing violence to a nature 
which God has touched to the finest issues, or opposing 
his Providence, which is love ; not by resolving his 
7 



98 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

kind and wise appointments into an irresistible fate; 
or drowning the grief, which heaven designed to 
sanctify and exah, in the cares or the follies of life. 
The Christian's remedy for sorrow is very different 
from all this. He knows that the Lord God Omnipo- 
tent reigneth ; that all things shall work together for 
good to them that love him ; that even calamity itself 
shall yield peaceful fruits. Therefore, when his heart 
is overwhelmed he goes, as did the Saviour in whom 
he trusts, '* to the Rock, higher than he." There he 
finds his refuge and defence. He finds a wisdom that 
cannot err ; a goodness which no neglect, ingratitude 
or sin can change ; a compassion and faithfulness 
which, like the everlasting hills, cannot be moved. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 99 



THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE A SOURCE OF CON- 

SOLATION. 



Behold the fowls of the air •, for they sow not-, neither do they reap, nor 
gather into barns j yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they ? 



The most effectual and permanent source of con- 
solation, under any afflictive event, is doubtless the 
conviction that all events are wisely ordered by a con- 
trolling Providence. How th^n is such a conviction to 
be acquired ? Arguments, strong and good ones, cal- 
culated to impress it on the mind with an indelible 
stamp, are to be found in the wide range of true Chris- 
tian divinity ; for the ways of God to man have been 
justified by the wisest and greatest among the sons of 
men. Let those whose feelings, habits or engagements 
will permit them to put their faculties upon a course of 
sustained exercise, study these arguments, and I enter- 
tain no fear of the result. I believe that as the inves- 
tigation is pursued, conviction will grow up and 
strengthen, and bear the fruits of comfort, submission, 
and peace. 

Yet there is one short and perfectly simple train of 
thought, which is as satisfactory on this subject as the 
most labored process of reasoning. For my own part, 



100 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

at least, I need but a single reflection to silence every 
doubt and dissipate every fear. I look abroad on the 
works of the Almighty. There is not a single object 
on which I turn my eye, which does not display a wis- 
dom and skill which fill me with admiration and won- 
der. From the dew-drop which trembles and glitters 
on the leaf, to the world which rolls and shines in 
space, all is admirable, and all is wonderful. In sense- 
less matter and in living things ; in secret powers and 
visible agencies; in motion, attraction, and rest; in 
growth and decay; in life and in death, there is an 
arrangement and a certainty which inspire me with 
confidence, and a depth of knowledge which is past 
my finding out. And what am I, that I should ques- 
tion the originating and guiding intelligence of a sys- 
tem like this ? Can the skill which modelled so many 
forms of beauty and magnificence ever be mistaken, 
or exhausted ? Can the wisdom and the power which 
suspended vast and countless worlds in infinitude, which 
preserve their admirable arrangement, and in all their 
paths and motions keep them from the slightest inter- 
ference with each other, fail to adjust, in the best man- 
ner, the affairs of one small spot, in which I and a 
few fellow-mortals dwell together ? 1 ask myself this 
simple question, — Can the wisdom of nature's God 
ever judge unwisely ? It is entirely and absolutely 
impossible. 

And therefore, if there were no other inducements 
to the love, contemplation and study of nature, than 
the religious convictions which they tend to form, and 
the satisfactory evidences, which they furnish, of a 
benign and careful Providence, surely these would 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 101 

be amply sufficient. There is a constancy and calm- 
ness, a lasting beauty and majesty in the forms and 
operations which are all around us, which tell of a 
hand that never tires and an eye that never sleeps. A 
consolation is expressed in their settled serenity, steadi- 
ness and obedience, which argument and eloquence 
may attempt in vain to afford, and to which we may 
securely resort for comfort when other sources have 
failed us. This fountain is ever fresh, ever flowing, 
and ever full. The tide of our fortunes and the hearts 
of men may change; but nature remains the same. 
Calamities may overtake us ; disappointments may 
blight our most cherished hopes ; we may be grieved, 
wronged, depressed, wearied with the world, and wea- 
ried with ourselves ; and yet the day will glow with 
the same brightness ; the night will return with her 
unaltered train of splendor ; and the continued order 
and tranquillity of creation will convey to our hearts 
the assuring intelligence that all is well. 

Yes, all is well in the course of the universe ; in 
the dispensations of Providence ; in the ways of our 
heavenly Father. If we will acquiesce and be instruct- 
ed, all will be well too with us. Nothing but our own 
pride, or waywardness, or dullness, stands between 
these salutary operations and ourselves. Let us sub- 
mit, and obey, and love ; let us cooperate with the 
great Disposer ; let us go along with him in his paths, 
confidingly and humbly ; and all will be well, both 
without and within us ; completely and forever well. 



102 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



GRATITUDE AMIDST SORROWS. 



Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine ; 
though the labor of the olive should fail, and the fields should yield no 
meat ; yet I will rejoice in the Lord •, I will joy in the God of my sal- 
vation. 



It is essential to true devotion that we cherish such 
views of the divine character as shall inspire, not sub- 
mission only, but religious joy, under every circum- 
stance of life. Joy is " a delight of the mind," arising 
from the possession or the near prospect of good. 
Gratitude is a thankful sense of benefits received, dis- 
posing to proportionate returns. But both our religious 
joy and gratitude are too limited in their objects and 
extent. There is apt to be something selfish and mer- 
cenary in their nature. We confine them to the day 
of our prosperity ; when our blessings are many ; our 
hopes are cheering; and, as it is expressed by the 
patriarch, when the candle of the Lord is shining 
around us. But have we not reason to fear that these 
emotions are little better than the gayety of the animal 
spirits ? They are scattered with the first blast of ad- 
versity, and changed to dejection and distrust. Now 
it belongs to the true child of God, under every cir- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 103 

cumstance, whether of blessing or affliction, amidst the 
overflowing of divine bounty and the want of all out- 
ward comforts, to rejoice in the Lord, and to joy in 
the God of his salvation. 

To the worldly mind, which can discern no good and 
therefore no cause for gratitude, except in present en- 
joyments, this sentiment may appear extravagant or' 
absurd. Do you call upon me to rejoice in adversity, 
when my blessings and my hopes are taken from me ? 
What is this but mad enthusiasm, which affects to find 
pleasure in fasts and mortifications, in painful vigils 
and self-inflictions ; or the insensibility of the stoic, 
who pretends that suffering is but a name ; or perhaps 
it is no better than the proud defiance of the savage, 
who can smile at the worst tortures his conqueror can 
inflict, and sing his war-song amidst the agonies of 
death. 

But the sentiment I would recommend has no alli- 
ance with all this. It is grounded on a pure love of 
God ; on just views of human life ; and on a firm faith 
of the life to come, which can find causes for grati- 
tude, notwithstanding the loss of earthly good. 

1. Religious joy, such as the prophet declares he 
could feel amidst famine, desolation, and all calamity, 
rests on God for its object. It is not dependent for its 
existence or degree upon outward circumstances. It 
fixes the mind, not so much on the benefit received 
as on the source whence it flows. The gratitude 
therefore with which it is accompanied, or rather of 
which it is an essential part, depends not on the value 
of the gift but on the infinite grace of the Giver. As 
the faithful subject receives with thankfulness the 



1'04 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

slightest favor, even a complacent look, from an hon- 
ored sovereign, so will the devoted child of God regard 
the most common gift as coming from his bounteous 
hand. In the same manner we do not estimate the 
tokens received from a cherished friend by any sordid 
calculations of their value, but simply as the pledges 
of an affection in which we rejoice ; which, whether 
bestowed or not, still yield us pleasure in the contem- 
plation of his virtues, and in the hope of possessing his 
regard. By inferior comparisons like these we may 
learn something of the foundations of the Christian's 
joy in God. It is not so much, I repeat, in his benefits 
as in his infinite perfections ; joy in his immutable 
nature ; in his almighty power ; in his unerring wis- 
dom ; in his spotless holiness and impartial justice ; 
his exhaustless goodness ; his paternal love. So that 
amidst all change, the disappointment of earthly 
hopes, the loss of all temporal good, the *' first good, 
the first fair," remains ; and he can say, the Lord 
liveth, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God 
of my salvation. 

2. In the great principle of faith, and especially in 
the prospects of the religion which he has received 
from Jesus Christ, the Christian possesses also an un- 
failing source of joy. In this blessed religion he 
reads the promises of pardon and peace with God, and 
is assured of the supply of all his spiritual wants. 
He is instructed by it of the vanity of this life, of the 
certainty and reality of the life to come. And it is 
enough to sustain him in all his griefs, that beyond the 
darkness and the shadows of the present he shall find 
a celestial home ; that there awaits him a glorious 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 105 

immortality, for which his "light afflictions" shall but 
have served to prepare him. 

3. The state of mind to which the loss of earthly 
blessings, when faithfully improved, conduces, is a 
third source of religious joy, and a just cause for grat- 
itude to God. " Before I was afflicted," said David, 
** I went astray ; but now I have kept thy word.'' 
And in the salutary lessons which his adversity had 
taught him, he adds, " It is good for me that I have 
been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." Had 
he enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, he might have 
departed yet farther from God. At least he might 
never have attained to that near communion with him, 
through which he has become to all ages an example 
of piety. The experience of the royal Psalmist is the 
experience of multitudes. Adversity calls us home. It 
leads us from the creature to the Creator. In acquaint- 
ing us with him, it gives us peace. It invites to 
prayer; and thus opens an inexhaustible resource of 
instruction ; of consolation, and hope. It exposes our 
fallacious dependence on the world ; and fixes our 
hearts there, where only true joy is to be found. Ask 
of the suffering Christian, and I doubt not he can tell 
you, that he has had reason to bless the hours of his 
sorrow. Nay, that when to the earthly eye every 
thing seemed most calamitous, and no prospects open- 
ing from the world to gladden him, he has yet enjoyed 
in the submission of his soul to God ; in the conviction 
he has derived of the reality and the value of his faith ; 
in the peace that comes with prayer; in the spirituality 
of his frame ; in his invigorated resolution ; in the se- 
renity of his conscience ; and, above all, in the visita 



106 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

tions of God's spirit, " whose entrance giveth light," 
more pure, more heartfelt pleasure, than the world 
with all its satisfactions had ever yielded him. Has 
he not reason then to joy in God ? 

4. There is a pleasure also to the good man, 
amidst his own griefs, derived from the happiness of 
others. His satisfactions of benevolence are inde- 
pendent of any selfish regard to his own condhion ; 
and he does not lose them, even though he loses the 
power of bestowing. Though his own fig-tree may 
not blossom, and his own fields may yield no meat, 
yet he will be glad if God has blessed his neighbor 
with a plenteous harvest. With the disinterested love 
which the Saviour has taught him, he will be pleased to 
witness good indulged to others which has been denied 
to himself. Instead of yielding to envy or ill will, he 
will derive a solace to his own sufferings from the 
thought that so many are exempted. He will con- 
sider himself but as one of a countless family, and 
God as the universal father, the constant friend, the 
bounteous benefactor of mankind. Nor will he suffer 
the sense of his own privations to diminish his gratifi- 
cation in surveying the vast stores of comfort and 
happiness provided for his fellow-creatures. So far 
indeed from hardening his heart, his sorrows will dis- 
pose him to open it the wider, and to make more 
tender and more effectual all his sympathies with 
others. Nor can this be considered as an extrava- 
gance which only the enthusiast can feel. It is but 
an imperfect imitation of him who pleased not him- 
self, who took upon him our infirmities and became 
poor, that we might be rich. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 107 

5. Lastly, the true child of God, under present 
troubles, will find a devout pleasure in surveying his 
past experiences of divine mercy. He will recall with 
gratitude "the days when God preserved him. As 
he was in the day of his youth, when the secret of 
the Most High was upon his tabernacle ; when his 
glory was fresh in him, and the rock poured him out 
rivers of oil." Or, if he has never known that ful- 
ness of honor and prosperity which this fine imagery 
would seem to imply, he can at least remember many 
expressions of the divine goodness. If he is now in 
want, he will not forget how long and how graciously 
his wants were supplied ; or if now in sickness, how 
many months and years of health had been permitted 
him. If it now be to him the night of bereavement, 
and lover and friend are put far from him, he will 
yet give thanks that his friends were spared so long. 
'* Sweet, also, will be the memory of God's grace." 
The Christian, in his deepest affliction, will recall with 
a sacred pleasure all his experience of the divine 
presence to his soul ; all the consolation he has found 
in sorrow ; all the strength imparted in temptation ; 
and in the new energy supplied to his faith, in the 
encouragement of Christian sympathy, and the various 
offices of friendship, he will delight to acknowledge 
the mercy which is mingled with judgment, and which 
has followed him all his days. 

We have spoken of the causes of gratitude which 
remain after the loss of all earthly good, and which 
are found in God and religion alone. But it is seldom 
indeed that any of his children are left desolate. 
Amidst the most complicated privation, how many 



108 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

blessings are yet untouched ! If health be taken, 
reason is left. If affluence or even competence be 
denied, enough for necessity is granted. If bereaved 
of one friend, how nnany others are spared ! Or if 
that friend was the near and the dear, in whom we 
had fondly trusted, who was even to us as our own 
selves, have we no cause for thankfulness that such a 
friend was lent, and so long continued ? Have we 
never found too that when one source of happiness 
has been closed, it was but to open another ? What 
though a single hope has been disappointed, how many 
others have been satisfied ; so that at the very moment 
we are weeping over one calamity, God's bounteous 
h^nd is pouring upon us unnumbered blessings. And 
are there no comforts, if we may not call them 
pleasures, peculiar to a state of sorrow ? Is it not 
God's merciful design in appointing it, to disengage us 
for a season from the tumults and passions of the 
world, and to give us his own peace, such as the 
world never gives ? Does not suffering create for us 
new sympathies, and show to us what before we 
might have distrusted, the faithfulness as well as effi- 
cacy of Christian friendship ? And even though it 
should force upon us some painful remembrances^ of 
ourselves, yet in the severity of self-examination : 
in the tenderness of contrition and the reviving hopes 
of virtue, there is an holy calm of the spirit, the peace 
of God, which passeth understanding. 

How well then is fulfilled to the Christian that pro- 
mise of his Lord: "Your hearts shall rejoice; and 
your joy shall no man take from you ! " In every 
thing he gives thanks ; for he can find occasions for 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 109 

gratitude in all. He praises God for his mercies. 
He can praise him also for his judgments. And 
though every earthly comfort be taken, he can still 
praise him for the hope of heaven ; for the gift of 
Christ Jesus. He can *' praise him for himself alone." 



110 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THOU SLEEPEST, BUT WE WILL NOT REGRET THEE. 



Fair sleeper, rest in peace ! 
We cannot wish thee back, for a sweet voice 
Whispers unto us, bidding us rejoice 

That thou art now at ease 
From pain, walking the golden streets above, 

Where sun and moon is Christ's eternal love. 

f 

E'en when Death — terror's king — 
Came to conduct the mortal to its rest 
Within its mother earth's cold, silent breast, 

The radiance of his wing 
Threw beams of light upon thy pallid face, 
That lit thy soul to its abiding place. 

The weight of many years 
Was not upon thee ; — thou wert called away 
From us in the bright morning of thy day. 

Life's burdens and its fears 
Had not pressed heavily on thy young heart, 
Ere came that early summons to depart. 

Earth had no charms for thee 
Compared with the full glories around thee now — 
The sweet-toned harps, the crown upon thy brow. 

And the grand minstrelsy 
Of cherubim and seraphim, before 
The throne of Him the heavenly hosts adore. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. Ill 

High Heaven is now thine own ; 
Though we are heavy-hearted, and the tear 
"Will gush out as we vainly list to hear 

The wonted gentle tone 
That fell upon the glad ear from a tongue 
Now warbling praise the heavenly choirs among. 

O, when a few more days 
Have hurried by, they who lament thy loss 
Will find, that earth's best treasures are but dross 

Beside the glowing rays 
Of glory, kindled round his brow who trod 
The path thy spirit found that leads to God. 

Loved sleeper, fare thee well ! 
We will not wish thee back, but lift the prayer 
In fervency, that we may meet thee there 

Where thou hast gone to dwell ; — 
The prayer, that with us, as with thee, the even 
Of life may be the entrance home to Heaven. 



112 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE BEAD ON THE LIVING. 

No man dieth to himself. 

No one can be taken away without leaving a per- 
ceptible void. It may not indeed be observed by us, 
and yet to the fond eye of affection it seems a chasm 
that nothing can fill. The death of almost every indi- 
vidual is a loss ; generally a serious loss to his family 
and to the circle in which he moved ; oftentimes an 
important loss to society. So variously and so closely 
are we connected by the bonds of kindred and intimacy, 
that not one link in the chain can be broken without 
loosening and weakening the whole. 

" No man dieth to himself." He dieth to the liv- 
ing ; and to them this is the saddest circumstance of 
all. The places that once knew him, now know him 
no more. In the church we look for the well-known 
features of our friend ; but he is not there ; the widow 
and the fatherless sit alone in the desolate pew ; or 
the countenances of strangers return our inquiring 
gaze. The eye seeks for him in the family ; but his 
seat is vacant at the hearth and at the board. The 
door opens ; but the expected and familiar form does 
not enter. We seek in vain for those placid features 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 113 

which were wont to salute us with the cheering smile 
of a benignant sympathy. We listen in vain to catch 
the mild accents of that sweet voice which once spoke 
with so much wisdom and tenderness of human virtue 
and of human woe. It is mute, that tongue which 
formerly poured consolation into the troubled heart. 
We miss those little offices of kindness, those little 
expressions of regard, which with him were the natu- 
ral promptings of a feeling mind, and which were 
soothing and grateful to our souls. Yes, when a friend 
is taken awav, we feel that he dieth not to himself 
alone ; we feel that to us chiefly he dieth. There is a 
vacancy in our hearts, which we know not how to fill. 
We look around, but we can discern nothing capable 
or worthy to occupy that sacred place. Every thing 
human and earthly appears to us inadequate, dispro- 
portionate, and inferior. 

There is another and a very important sense in 
which the declaration is true. *' No man dieth to him- 
self; " for his influence still remains with the living. 
His memory survives, and is fondly and sacredly 
cherished. A busy fancy is wont to summon up the 
shadowy forms of departed loveliness and goodness, 
and to present to our admiring view the well-known 
features and movements of those who once walked 
with us in the crowded paths of life. It is a natural 
feeling which invests every thing that belonged to 
them with a solemn interest, and consecrates the 
very ground on which they trod. 

" No man dieth to himself; " for his example is left 
behind for the imitation of the survivors ; and they 
often derive a melancholy pleasure from reflecting on 
8 



114 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

his virtues, and recounting his good deeds. The 
righteous man, though dead, continues to exert a 
power over those who knew and loved him. His 
character is not interred with his bones, but is em- 
balmed in a grateful remembrance. It still exists, an 
abiding monument, a speaking witness of his worth. 
With his name are associated the holiest thoughts and 
the most delightful recollections. His friends honor 
and love virtue the more, from having seen it exem- 
plified and illustrated in the life of one whom they 
venerated and esteemed. They cannot cease to ad- 
mire and love it, so long as his hallowed image is 
present to their minds. His superior worth is a con- 
stant monitor, inciting them onwards, and chiding their 
indifference and delay. Yes, in leaving behind him 
such a character, the good man bequeaths the most 
precious legacy. He shows us by his example to 
what a high .measure of moral and spiritual excel- 
lence our nature is capable of attaining. He proves 
to us that the character which Christianity requires us 
to form is not an imaginary nor an impracticable 
thing. We have need of such instances of purity and 
goodness, to instruct and encourage us. We should 
bless God for affording us the opportunity to witness 
such manifestations of the power of religious principle 
and the loveliness x)f Christian virtue. 



- 1 know well, 



That they who love their friends most tenderly, 
Still bear their loss the best. There is in love 
A consecrated power, that seems to wake 
Only at the touch of death, from its repose 
In the profoundest depths of thinking souls, 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 115 

Superior to the outward signs of grief, 
Sighing, or tears. When these have passed away, 
It rises calm and beautiful, like the moon, 
Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness 
Mingling the breath of undisturbed peace. 

Whilst we thus dwell with a mournful pleasure on the 
memory of those who once walked with us on earth, 
we should ask ourselves, seriously and candidly, what 
there was in their circumstances an(J characters that 
now so endears them to our remembrance ? What 
was there in their natural or acquired endowments that 
commanded our reverence and conciliated our esteem 
and love ? Was it their fortune ? O ! no ; though it 
may have been princely ; for there were thousands 
whose treasures exceeded theirs, yet who never ex- 
torted from us a single expression of admiration or 
affection. It surely was not the regularity of their 
features, the symmetry of their forms, the grace of 
their carriage, or the enchantment of their address ; 
for however engaging these exterior qualities may be ; 
whatever charm they may throw around the person of 
their possessor; however much they may recommend 
the living man to the society of the refined and gen- 
tle ; yet surely it is not for the possession of such 
qualities alone that the memory of the departed is 
cherished. It is not their intellect chiefly which is 
embalmed in your hearts, though that may have been 
vigorous and fertile ; for you have witnessed many a 
brighter genius ; you have mourned over the perver- 
sion of talents far more splendid than theirs. Nor 
was it solely the tie of blood or brotherhood that 
bound you to them ; for affection does not always rise 



116 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

and fall with the degrees of relationship; and you 
know that some of your fondest remembrances are of 
those who could put in no such claim to your regard. 

What was it then, which so enchained you to them, 
which death has not been able to destroy, and to 
which you now point as the only enduring part of 
their nature ? It was their pure spirits, their unspot- 
ted souls, their sincere hearts, their kind feelings, 
their amiable dispositions, their excellent virtues. 
These are the qualities of departed worth on which 
friendship loves to dwell ; for she knows that these are 
the qualities which are imperishable, recommend their 
possessor to God, and fit him for heaven. Moral 
purity, spiritual excellence ; this is the object of our 
being, the perfection of our nature, the only thing 
worth striving for, the only thing about us that is truly 
ours, the only thing that is immortal. Your wealth, 
your fame, your learning, your beauty — what are 
they but the mere accidents of your earthly existence ; 
the mortal integuments which you must cast off before 
you can enter the world of spirits ? 

Let us then expend our thoughts and lavish our 
labors in ennobling and purifjnng the incorruptible 
part of our nature. Let us be incited to this by the 
example of those excellent ones whose characters we 
revere and whose memory is precious to our souls. 
Can you not fancy that from the regions of peace and 
blessedness those pure and happy spirits are now 
looking down upon you, and watching with the eye of 
friendly solicitude the course in which you have at 
length resolved to go — whether it be through the wide 
gate and along the broad path that leadeth far from 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 117 

their dwelling place, far from light and peace and 
joy, or whether it be through the strait gate and along 
the narrow way which leadeth unto life, up to the 
throne of God ? That child, which was cut down 
prematurely in its infant simplicity and innocence, 
may now be watching with filial piety the steps of its 
earthly parent ; and the dearest hope of its heart per- 
haps is, that it may be the first to welcome you to 
those abodes of purity and bliss. What a rich conso- 
lation does this thought inspire ! What a powerful 
incentive does it supply to the heart of the tender and 
affectionate Christian to walk in the ways of truth and 
righteousness ! O let us not by our disobedience and 
irreligion forfeit the hope of a blissful re-union with 
those dear friends who have departed this life in peace, 
in peace with the world, with their own consciences, 
and with their God. 

O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure 
In living virtue ; that, when both must sever, 
Although corruption may our frame consume, 
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom. 

Thus should we endeavor to improve the troubles 
that are brought upon us. We should permit them to 
exert their natural influence on our hearts and charac- 
ters. Let us open our bosoms to the teachings of 
affliction ; for affliction is the best school of virtue. It 
humbles the proud spirit and softens the hard heart, yet 
prepares the mind for the reception of good influences 
and the cultivation of religious principle and sentiment. 
Upon the heart of the prosperous, the voice of re- 
ligion often makes no more impression than the light 



118 AN OFFEKING OF SYMPATHY 

dew-drop upon the marble pavement. But when the 
same heart is intenerated by grief, the whisper of 
reh'gious consolation is heard with joy, and may have 
a deep and abiding power. 

Would to heaven that the sanctifying influences of 
bereavement were as deep and abiding as they are 
vivid and poignant : that the emotions and sentiments 
it awakens were not as transient as the tear that suf- 
fuses the cheek, or the throb that heaves the bosom ! 
Would to heaven that the good feelings and purposes, 
which are excited in our minds by the remembrance 
of the sainted dead, might be watered by the dews of 
divine grace, and be ripened into the fair fruits of 
piety and holiness ! O that the passions, which are 
now subdued by the pressure of domestic sorrow, 
might never again be roused into fury by the collisions 
and rivalries of a turbulent world ! O that the heart, 
which now melts at the mere mention of those it once 
loved, might never again be hardened by the deceit- 
fulness of sin ! 

The posthumous influence of character is usually in 
proportion to the intellectual power and the moral 
worth of the departed ; and is more or less extensive 
according as he was known and appreciated when 
living. To every family indeed, however humble and 
obscure, the virtues of a deceased member are pre- 
cious ; and as you enlarge the sphere of his intimacy 
and usefulness, you increase the salutary influence 
which the remembrance of his good deeds is suited to 
exert on the survivors. What a powerful motive does 
this consideration present to a devout and holy life ! 
To believe that our virtues will live after us ; that our 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 119 

memories will be cherished and our characters be 
operating upon others long after our bodies have min- 
gled with the dust ; this surely, of all the subordinate 
incitements to well-doing, must occupy the first and 
highest place. It is a glorious and animating thought, 
that we may do good even after death ; and who that 
is warmed with that sincere and ardent love for his 
brethren which Christianity inculcates, will not feel 
desirous of speaking to them, even from the tomb, 
and of urging them onwards in the way of wisdom, 
peace, and salvation ? 



120 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE EFFICACY OF RELIGIOUS CONSOLATION. 



Take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand 

in the evil day. 



Of all the offices of Christianity, that which she 
assumes in the hour of affliction appears to be the 
least understood. A power is ascribed to her over 
misfortune ; but the nature of this power and the 
manner of its exercise are matters about which the 
common notions of men are extremely indistinct. 
Religion is sometimes spoken of as if it held an en- 
chanter's wand over all the evils of our condition. 
And in fact the general idea seems to be, that it is 
alike effectual in all cases. But this expectation has 
been disappointed, and instances are frequently occur- 
ring in which religion appears to possess no sort of 
power, when her gracious consolations have no more 
effect than " the loud sighings of the wind." Cases 
of this kind have unhappily, but very naturally, created 
strong doubts as to the efficacy of religious consolation. 
Many are disposed to deny to religion any ability to 
assuage human grief; and to rest all their hopes of 
relief in the season of bereavement, upon the course 
of time and nature. Thus is Christianity thrust out 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 121 

of one of the most important stations that her blessed 
founder intended she should occupy. 

Now all this misapprehension arises from the 
neglect of one simple but most important truth. It 
seems to be wholly forgotten, that religion has neither 
any power, nor does it aim to have any, except so far 
as it has become a deep, habitual, and living sentiment. 
It cannot be too frequently or too deeply impressed 
upon our minds, that if only a name and profession, 
Christianity has no influence. Where it is known only 
in word and form, it is as powerless as the dead. A 
stranger coming into my dwelling in the moment of 
sorrow, wholly unacquainted with the circumstances 
of my affliction, could not have less sympathy with 
me or less control over my feelings than religion has 
upon such an occasion, if my heart has never become 
familiar with it ; if it is not my ancient and bosom 
friend. 

Religion must be infused into the very essence of 
the mind. Our fashion of thought and feeling must 
be formed by it, and our whole nature sublimated by 
its union with our best sensibilities. It must be but 
another name for the shape and habit which the spirit 
within us has assumed. All this can be accomplished 
only by the most patient and gradual efforts on our 
part, to render religious consideration, a sense of God, 
and of God's unslumbering providence, a just estimate 
of life and its various objects of pursuit, matters of 
daily reflection and study. Religion must stand by us 
in our cradles. She must take our childhood by the 
hand, and summon all the vicissitudes of life to her 
aid. And then, when we have in this way become 



122 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

thoroughly imbued with the truth, our feelings regu-' 
lated, and our whole characters formed by large and 
religious modes of thought, then no bounds can be set 
to the power of religion over all the changes, no 
matter how sudden or severe, to which we may be 
exposed. It is an armor which encases our whole 
being, without putting us under the least restraint. 
The fiery darts of sin cannot pierce it. They will fall 
quenched and broken at our feet. The blows of afflic- 
tion, fall heavily as they may, will only increase the 
animation of our resistance. We may weep, and 
our whole frames shake under the sense of bereave- 
ment. So much must be pardoned to human nature. 

But all our tears are sanctified. They burst 
From our o'ercharged hearts like blessed showers, 
Which leave the skies they come from, bright and holy. 

The best and most consoling thoughts will, by the 
simple force of habit, come thronging into our hearts, 
and they will find our sensibility excited and ready to 
embrace them as so many messengers from the God 
of all consolation. And it will be impossible for us 
to lose our presence of mind, because a perfect un- 
derstanding of our frailty and exposure is always 
present in our thoughts. 

Let this now be remembered. Let it be established 
as a first truth with us, that if religion is to comfort us 
in affliction ; if she is to give us aid in any time of 
peril, she must have had long and supreme command 
over our hearts. She must be at home in our bosoms, 
and then she diff^uses a virtue through the whole moral 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 123 

frame, so that affliction cannot touch so much as the 
hem of our garments without being sanctified. Then 
her consolation abounds. In one word, it is only the 
religious man, that can be comforted by religion. 
Her language is, " I love them who love me." 



124 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



MAN'S WILL CONFORMED TO GOD'S WILL. 



Should it be according to thy mind ? 

It may be according to our mind. Ay, we may 
have our wiU. There is a way to make our desires 
certain of gratification ; to make our enterprises all 
prosper ; our plans all succeed ; to baffle misfortune ; 
to chain down chance and vicissitude ; to abolish 
anxiety, and make disappointment unknown. Is there 
not such a way, reader ? Are there not voices pro- 
claiming it from God's word, from man's reason, from 
our heart's inmost depths ? Would you learn this 
way ? Then listen to these true oracles, when they 
declare the sovereignty of One alone ; one designing 
mind ; one controlling will ; and pronounce the gov- 
ernment of the universe inconsistent with more than 
one. Every where this will alone prevails. It is 
around us, and within us, ruling ceaselessly with 
unshared, irresistible dominion. This will must have 
sway, and none other can ever accomplish its desire, 
but by harmoniously coinciding with it. This is the 
secret. Have your will, by moulding it according to 
the will of God. It will then be guided by wisdom 
that has never erred, and enforced by might that 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 125 

never has been baffled, and watched over by love that 
has never failed. 

Otherwise, what do we ? Dissatisfaction with the 
appointments of this higher will, is an appeal from the 
tribunal of his wisdom to our own weak judgment. 
All anxiety is so much distrust of Him, who knows 
best in every case. All feelings of disappointment 
.are the indication of a disposition that, if allowed full 
sway, would deny the benignity of his rule, and over- 
turn his throne. Knows he what he would do, the 
man of peevish discontent, when he so readily com- 
plains of his lot at every trivial mishap that he permits 
to sour and irritate him ? He thinks, it may be, that 
at the worst, he is only spoiling his temper and ban- 
ishing the cheerful smiles of his friends. But there 
is a friend above treated with worse rudeness : and 
every petulant exclamation that stains the lips which 
he has touched with life ; every angry oath that 
desecrates the tongue which he has made to praise 
him, is directed, however unconsciously, against his 
holy will ; and gives its little force to the subversion of 
his empire, to the desolating of the universe ; making 
it fatherless : destitute of a governing providence. 

And of how much more direct unkindness to man 
may wilfulness unknowingly be guilty ? Who can 
tell the mischief that might be done by one rash wish 
granted ? Are we impatient of the almighty Father's 
opposition to our vain and short-sighted projects ? 
Rather let us give thanks, that we are not allowed to 
witness the destructive issues that would, perhaps, 
attend the accomplishment of the selfish scheme. It 
might interrupt the beneficent order of nature. It 



126 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

might interfere with the kindest arrangements of 
Providence. It might, by some of its distant conse- 
quences, bring death to ourselves ; involve in ruin all 
who are dear to us; spread misery over the world; 
destroy souls. 

Presume we not, therefore, to intrude into the 
province of the Supreme. Put we forth no audacious 
hand to disturb the complicated machinery of his 
work. But let us be satisfied his darkest ways are 
right ; and let meek submission prompt ignorant man's 
most becoming prayer, ''Thy will be done." 

" Thy will be done." Brief but comprehensive 
prayer ! Simple as the words of Jesus always were ; 
of import more full and solemn than a cathedral's 
chanted litanies. Sublime summary of man's wants ! 
It asks for all things ; all things needful to make him 
blessed. It contains the most copious system of duty. 
It is the most useful body of divinity. It teaches piety 
and love and trust. It tells of wisdom and goodness 
and power on high. God's will be done. If it were done 
what would there be wanting on earth or in heaven ? 
For is it not his will alone, that makes the spirits of the 
just rejoice in bliss ? And would he not have the 
spirits of all, spirits of the just ? 

How dear should this little petition of Jesus be to 
all, who long for such peace as the vicissitudes of 
fortune cannot reach ! How often should it be in 
their hearts ! It may be on their lips alone, and they 
deceive themselves, and think the prayer earnest from 
the heart. Look, when overwhelming grief has 
bowed down the mourner's soul. The mother has lost 
her only child, and sinks beneath the blow; prostrate 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 127 

in spirit ; hopeless in heart. She mechanically repeats 
the words of submission, that she has caught from those 
about her, " God's will be done ; '' but they, who mark 
her utter and effortless abandonment to wretchedness, 
may see that she is yielding herself up not to the will of 
God, but to despair. She is resigned, but resigned blind- 
ly to her anguish, not to the wise visitation of Him who 
chasteneth for good. For then would she hear the 
call to her moral energies ; and the meek voice of a 
patient spirit would respond : *' It is right, it is wise, 
it is good, and it so should be ; while I daily pray, thy 
will be done, let me not murmur that it is done." 

And so through gathered clouds she'd move untouched, 
In silver purity ; and cheering, oft times, 
Their reluctant gloom. 

Reader, disciple of Jesus, does the prayer our 
Master has left us, never reproach us in repeating this 
clause, as if guilty of mockery toward the searcher of 
hearts ? Trace that Master's footsteps along his 
thorny path from the manger to the cross, and behold 
how he sought nowhere his own will, but the will of the 
Father who sent him. And what seek we ? What is 
our ruling purpose in life ? To gratify stubborn wil- 
fulness ? To accomplish only our own earth-born 
schemes of personal advancement ? Seek we our 
own will with irreligious, atheistic exclusiveness, never 
thinking of that other great will, which should and 
must have precedence ? We do so, if we have not 
set ourselves resolutely to the task of making the 
pleasure of our Maker the rule of our life. Otherwise, 
self is the master we instinctively serve ; and, strange 



128 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

as it may seem, it is a harder master than He will 
prove, whose will is only to bless us, if we will let 
him. 

We shall invoke, then, the predominance of his will 
over our hearts, if we are wise. We shall strive to 
enthrone it over every private wish. This be our 
resolution. And in order to establish its habitual 
dominion, we shall, in frequent meditation, impress 
upon the mind his claim to undisputed sovereignty. 
One sun in the heavens : one will in the universe ; a 
sun whose beams are light and life ; a will which 
pervades all creation with love. 

And to the further effect, that its authority may rule 
paramount within us, we shall likewise actively obey 
this will. Performing its practical requisitions, it will 
be easy to acquiesce in its passive inflictions. 

And when it awards us a bleeding heart, we will not 
turn away from the kind lesson it would teach. We 
will not rest satisfied with the alleviations which the 
cold-hearted philosophy of earth can minister ; but we 
will sound the solemn truth over and over again, in the 
depths of the soul, *' It is the will of God ; it is the 
will of God ; wise and good." 

And when it crowns us with joy, we shall not be 
thankful alone ; for simple thankfulness is paying 
deference to our own will ; but to gratitude for the 
gift we shall add complacency in the will of the giver. 
We shall value our happiness more for its origin in the 
skies. It is an expression of our Father's love. 

These few rules observed will make the. will of 
God a monarch over our desires and sentiments and 
thoughts. And our reward will be great. Peace will 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 129 

they give, not as this world giveth. There will be a 
quiet, praising melody, ever singing within our spirits. 
There will be the gladness of gentle and harmonious 
affections in our breasts. There will be a smile 
spread over the earth and the heavens to our eyes ; 
and the spirit of tranquil trust ever whispering in the 
heart, " Grieve no more ; fear no more ; your Father's 
will is done." 



130 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



A LETTER TO A FRIEND UNDER DEEP AFFLICTION. 

My dear ****** : 
Permit a sincere friend to offer you his sympathies, 
and to condole with you in this season of deep dis- 
tress. I would, if possible, say something that may 
assuage the anguish of your grief. Do not, I entreat 
you, refuse to receive consolation, or sink under the 
burden which your heavenly Father has laid upon 
you. Do not say, '* My sorrow is greater than I can 
bear." Pray unto God, earnestly, humbly pray, that 
he would sustain you and comfort you ; and doubt not 
that your prayer will be answered. He looks upon 
you with tender compassion and love, and waiteth to 
be gracious unto you. " Acquaint now thyself with 
him, and be at peace.'' " Cast your cares on him, for 
he careth for you." Yes, " as a father pitieth his chil- 
dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Let 
your affections draw you near to him, your best, your 
all-sufficient, your never-failing friend. Let him be 
the object of your supreme affection, and of your un- 
bounded trust ; 

That friend who never fails the just. 
Though other friends betray their trust. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 131 

He has, indeed, grievously afflicted you. " Lover 
apd friend has he put far from you, and your acquaint- 
ance into darkness ; " and, in deep anguish, you are 
ready to exclaim: " Have pity upon me, have pity 
upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath 
touched me." Your friends do indeed pity you ; but 
they are anxious that you should do right. Is there no 
danger, lest you should indulge your feelings too far ; 
and by abandoning yourself to despair, should not 
only lose the benefits, which your afflictions are de- 
signed to produce, but displease that righteous and all- 
perfect Being, who, in his mysterious Providence, has 
seen fit, once and again, to disappoint your youthful 
hopes ? Oh, do not, my friend, allow yourself to ques 
tion for one moment, the rectitude and wisdom and 
kindness — yes, the kindness of all his ways. Bow 
with meekness before him ; or, as it is expressed in 
the words of inspiration : " Humble thyself under the 
mighty hand of God, and he will exalt thee in due 
time." 

I do not ask you not to weep. Religion does not 
require you to lay this restraint upon your feelings. 
Your heart would break, should you not weep. Jesus 
wept ; and his example we may safely follow. 1 am 
sensible that you have cause to weep ; that your grief 
is very great, almost insupportable. But do not shut 
your heart against the consolations of Christianity. 
That same compassionate Saviour, who wept at the 
tomb of his friend, and who " hath borne our griefs, 
and carried our sorrows," still lives, and his tender 
heart still feels for us. He feels for you, and proffers 
you his sympathy and aid in this hour of darkness. 



132 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

To you, those charming words are addressed : " Come 
unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." Do you not now feel your need of 
other supports than this world can give ? Oh, then 
come unto Jesus ; take his yoke upon you and learn 
of him, and you shall find rest to your soul. He will 
teach you how to bear your afflictions and how to im- 
prove them, so that they may be converted into bless- 
ings. Yes, one of his inspired apostles has said : 
*' Although no chastening for the present seemeth to 
be joyous, but grievous ; nevertheless, afterwards it 
yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them 
that are exercised thereby." And he himself has said : 
" I am the resurrection and the life ; " '' whosoever 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live." " Sorrow not then as those who have no hope ; 
for if we believe," thus the apostle addresses his 
afflicted friends, " that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring 
with him." Think not of your beloved friend merely 
as the cold tenant of the tomb. His mortal part indeed 
is there ; but his spirit is not there. Dust returneth 
unto dust, but the spirit to God who gave it. 

Let your thoughts then be directed to the world of 
spirits. Set your affections, which have clung, per- 
haps too fondly, to earthly objects, on things above, 
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Re- 
member, that one thing is needful, and let it be your 
first, your chief concern, to choose and to secure that 
good part, which cannot be taken away from you. 

Your affectionate friend. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 133 



THE DANGERS AND TEMPTATIONS OF ADVERSITY. 



The sorrow of the world worketh death. 

It is common to speak of the benefits of adversity ; 
of its efficacy to awaken salutary thoughts and pur- 
poses ; to purify and exalt the character. Nor are we 
perhaps saying too much when we ascribe to it some 
natural influence to make us better. At least, such we 
may be assured is the design of God in appointing 
it. Yet is there danger on this as well as on some 
other topics of religion, from unqualified or extrava- 
gant statement. It is not true that adversity always 
does us good ; or that of itself it is a spiritual benefit. 
For this must depend on the improvement we make of 
it. Like every other condition of life, it is for our 
trial ; and as long as life itself is probationary and we 
remain on this side heaven, there are no circum- 
stances in which we can be placed, whether of joy or 
sorrow, which shall be free from temptation. As 
therefore in prosperity we are in danger from world- 
liness and presumption, so in our adversity we have 
cause to fear lest our hearts be overcharged with grief; 
lest we become distrustful of the goodness of God or 
of the kindness of men; and in yielding, as our natu- 



134 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

ral temperament may dispose, to dark surmises, to 
melancholy musings, or to absorbing pleasures; in the 
hardness of unbelief; in reckless despair, or the dis- 
tractions of worldly pursuit, we lose the benefit which 
God designed in afflicting us. 

The dangers of adversity vary with the natural dis- 
positions of men. There is with some a constitutional 
quietness, by which they can meet trouble and joy with 
equal composure ; a composure, indeed, which as the 
result of discipline and of religious principle is care- 
fully to be cherished, for it is an ingredient of moral 
greatness. But as a temperament, it implies little else 
than mere want of feeling, and may be absolutely fatal 
to all improvement of God's providence. On the other 
hand, there are those, whose extreme susceptibility, 
unrestrained by religion, would make them in time 
the victims of their grief, did not a feverish impatience 
of trouble, not less a part of their natural temper than 
their sensibility, hurry them into cares and engage- 
ments and pleasures, that indispose them for all serious 
reflection. 

1. In violent grief, as in all extravagance of passion, 
there is danger from reaction. As the fervors of reli- 
gious excitement quickly subside, so do the excesses 
of sorrow. And perhaps, in some weariness or even 
disgust at our own extravagance, we seek relief from 
objects altogether worldly, and rashly expose ourselves 
to the temptations of life in precisely that state of ex- 
citement which, whether it come from grief or joy, 
from the ardor of devotion or of mere animal passion, 
all observation and experience, and all reasoning from 
the well-known principles of our nature, show to be 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 135 

equally dangerous. What our Saviour therefore, by a 
remarkable similitude of an evil spirit going out of a 
man, but entering into him with new strength and in 
company with others worse than himself, applies to 
the slave of evil habits, who having resolved to break 
them off returns to them again, may prove true of the 
man of adversity. His last state shall be worse than 
the first. His affliction shall leave him worse than it 
found him. Because it has only excited without puri- 
fying his affections, and the means, which God ap- 
pointed for his benefit, he perverts to new occasions 
of sin. 

Here is one, for example, who had known prosperi- 
ty, but is now suffering reverses in his condition. His 
wealth, in which he trusted, is gone. For fulness he 
finds straits ; and instead of a cheerful charity and a 
generous hospitality, which it was his delight to exer- 
cise, he is constrained to eat the bread of carefulness, 
and to make his family the sharers of his multiplied 
privations. Now who will doubt that such adversity 
brings with it temptation ? And w^ho, that has marked 
its frequent consequences, will not count him happy 
and worthy of praise, whose perplexities have not 
hardened or embittered his spirit ; have not robbed him 
of his kind affections, which he can no longer indulge 
but in good wishes ; or, yet more unhappily, if they 
have not prevailed to corrupt his habits, and to add him 
to the number whom reverses of condition and lowness 
of spirits have sunk to the madness of intemperance. 

2. Nor are troubles of another description without 
their dangers. Bereavement of friends, as well as loss 
of property, may become our tempter. It would seem, 



136 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

that in the very nature of this sorrow there is much to 
improve the heart. Yet such is our proneness to per- 
vert to good occasions of evil, that the very sacredness 
and tenderness of the affection shall become a snare. 
When the husband and the father is bereaved of the 
partner of his life ; of her, not only to whom his best 
earthly affection was given, but on whom he reposed 
with a boundless confidence for the happiness of his 
house and the care of his children ; when such a lover 
and friend, his trusty counsellor and the '^ help meet" 
for him, is removed ; and his dwelling, once so cheer- 
ful, is made sad ; and cares, of which he had known 
nothing because they were wisely and faithfully sus- 
tained by another, he now finds devolving upon him- 
self; he is in danger, unless he takes to himself the 
armor of God, the defence of high and holy principle, 
first, from unworthy dejection, and then, sooner, alas ! 
than he could believe or imagine, from the worst temp- 
tations of the world. And the man who, before death 
entered his chambers, was safe and happy in the con- 
sciousness of virtue and the endearments of domestic 
love, shall, even while his friends are mourning with 
him the bitterness of his bereavement and the desola- 
tions of his house, have yielded himself to the allure- 
ments and even corruptions of the world. 

3. Is there no danger also, lest adversity take from 
us our filial confidence in God, tempting us to dark 
views of his providence, and to distrust, envy, or 
malice against our fellow-men ? This we believe is a 
danger peculiarly incident to reverses of fortune and 
to the perplexities to which we have adverted, in 
worldly affairs. Some afflictions men can easily 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 137 

endure. Sickness, in their own persons, or of their 
dearest friends, and bereavement, even in its more 
aggravated forms, they are able to sustain, because 
such appointments they refer immediately to God, and 
in the spirit of submission they summon religion to 
their aid. But losses of property, which they think 
themselves justified in ascribing to others, to negli- 
gence, improvidence or fraud, or at best to secondary 
causes, within, as they imagine, human control, involv- 
ing too a total change in their comforts and prospects, 
the effects of which they suffer whh every hour, they 
are less careful to improve. They do not here ac- 
knowledge the operation of the Lord, nor consider 
that this also is the work of his hand. They will not 
remember, that changes in the aspects of the world, 
affecting the success of enterprise, the vicissitudes of 
commerce, nay, that the wickedness of men, are 
ministers of God's judgments, no less than the stormy 
wind and tempest, the desolating flame, or the earth- 
quake, that fulfil his word. They find others ex- 
empted and even prosperous, who entered upon life 
with inferior advantages, or were pursuing the same 
career with themselves. And as their own resources 
are diminished and their social gratifications impaired ; 
perhaps too, as they may be ready in their dejected 
spirits to imagine, their influence or respectability 
affected, they yield themselves not to discontent only, 
but to envy and ill-will. They are troubled, not only 
at their own adversity, but at the prosperity of others. 
They murmur against God, and grow angry with their 
fellow-men. So that of all the inflictions of divine 
providence, there is reason to fear^ that none so often. 



138 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

fail of their gracious design ; none are so seldom 
followed by the peaceful fruits of righteousness, as are 
those which affect the outward estate, reducing the 
affluent and honorable to obscurity or straits. Who 
that has witnessed, will not deprecate the ravages 
which adversity in this form may make upon the tem- 
pers and habits of men ? 

4. From a distempered fancy, unduly magnifying 
our sorrows, disposing us to think that there is some- 
thing peculiar in our lot and a more than common 
bitterness infused into our cup, we find another source 
of danger. The power of imagination on this as on 
other subjects is almost boundless. There is also a 
selfishness in grief, which, fixing attention exclusively 
upon our own condition, easily admits the delusion, 
that we of all others are the most miserable. This is 
specially true of troubles that are of our own creation, 
the fruits of an indulged and distempered fancy, and 
which, having no limits in reality, seem to justify an 
unlimited grief. But we extend the delusion to those 
inflictions of heaven which are of most frequent 
occurrence, and which we never consider unusual 
but when appointed to ourselves. And then, in sol- 
itude and silence, in vain musings and thankless 
discontent, we aggravate our calamity, and complain 
as if that had happened to us, which is uncommon to 
men. We forget how great and how bitter may be 
the sorrows of others; how much heaviness of heart 
may hide itself under a cheerful countenance ; and 
that others may not be less troubled, but only better 
disciplined than we. We might remember too, how 
often we ourselves appear to our friends more cheerful 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 139 

than we are ; who in their turn are thinking far less 
of our afflictions than of their own. And even ad- 
mitting, that at the present moment they are at ease 
and prosperity, who can tell through what trials they 
may have passed ; by how many painful steps of care, 
perplexity, or bereaved affection, they have reached 
to their present enjoyments. While you are envying 
their condition, how know you but they are pining in 
secret grief, or are tormented with unutterable pains ? 
You think them happy in the multitude of their friends, 
in the health, and beauty, and promise of their chil- 
dren. But you forget the days of mourning they have 
numbered, or the friends and children they have 
buried in the grave. Nay, at the very moment when 
all to the stranger's eye is bright and joyous around 
them, and the cup of their prosperity seems running 
over, they may be grieving, in the anguish of their 
spirit, over disappointed affections, upbraiding con- 
sciences, or blasted hopes, for the treachery of a 
much-loved friend, or the profligacy of a darling child. 
Yes. It may not be doubted, that many a tear is shed 
in secret by those whom men call happy, and many a 
sleepless night endured of which the world takes no 
account. Not seldom does a selfish world ignorantly 
waste in envy, where an all-seeing and all-pitying God 
looks down with compassion. 

In truth, we can never judge rightly of each other's 
condition. There is a fallacy in appearances which 
no sagacity can detect. And if we know so little of 
the present griefs of others, still less can we foresee 
what troubles are to come upon them. We cannot 
imagine what destiny awaits them ; how soon their 



140 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

brightest prospects may be darkened, and their sun go 
down while it is yet day. Those reverses which it 
pleased Jehovah to denounce against an unthankful 
people, are sometimes visited upon the dwellings of 
the most prosperous. '' I will turn your feasts into 
mourning, and all your songs into lamentations. I 
will darken your dwelling in a clear day ; and will 
make the end thereof as a bitter day." Nor are such 
calamities more suited to repress the presumption of 
the secure, than to rebuke the envy which looks on 
the enjoyments of others with an evil eye, and will not 
consider, that all that fair show of happiness may 
only prove a preparation for more distinguished 
wretchedness. 

5. There is also danger from the indulgence of 
violent grief, not only because it is by its nature tran- 
sient and easily followed by opposite emotions, but 
because there is with some a disposition to rest in it, 
as if it were itself a virtue and the fulfilment of our 
whole duty in affliction. He that has wept for the loss 
of his friend, may imagine that he has discharged the 
whole duty to which God had called him ; and may 
even find a merit and a grace in the tenderness of 
emotions, which are honorable to his nature, and prove 
within him the prevalence of good feelings. Perhaps 
too he has exhibited himself, as he hopes, favorably to 
his friends in this part of an amiable character ; and 
with a strange ingenuity of vanity, ever ready to 
betray itself where it should least appear, he can draw 
from his tears and griefs some new occasion to think 
even better of himself than he did before. Nor is 
this all. For he suflTers his tears and groans to per- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 141 

form the whole work of grace within him, and to stand 
in stead of all lasting improvement of his sorrow. 

6. Nor may we omit, as among the worst dangers 
of adversity, and flowing from the same source, that 
of abuse of providence and of unfaithfulness to his 
paternal designs ; of hardening ourselves against re- 
buke, and thus despising the chastening of the Lord, 
In this is included also the danger, to which we have 
adverted, from transient impressions, from resolutions 
forgotten ; from devotions, at first excited and earnest, 
but afterwards neglected or suffered to relapse into 
formality. If our spirits have been touched by sorrow, 
and our purposes of goodness have been renewed, 
there is extreme danger, as well as folly and weakness, 
in returning to the remissness, worldliness, and bad 
habits, from which it was the very design of affliction 
to arouse us. For in so doing we are treacherous to 
ourselves ; we resist our own convictions ; we make 
fruitless the gracious designs of God's providence ; 
we reject the offered visitations of his grace, and sin 
against our own souls. 

We need not repeat what has been already presented 
in other parts of this work, of our duty to improve all 
adversity, as the minister of God for our good. As 
pupils in the school of Christ and as pilgrims in a 
world of trial, we must also learn to guard ourselves 
against its dangers, by a constant reference to the 
great principles of our faith ; by keeping our minds 
enlightened and sustained by the truth, as it is in Jesus. 
The best conceptions, however, we can form of the 
divine government, and the most humble views we can 
entertain of ourselves, as needing adversity, will not 



142 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

alone secure to us either its instruction or its solace 
We must take care amidst its temptations to maintain 
the simplicity, the integrity, the purity of our hearts. 
We must remember, that neither the number nor the 
intensity of our griefs will, without our own self- 
discipline make them salutary. For we have seen, 
that there may be a sorrow for them, which is not 
after a godly sort. There may be a sorrow of un- 
belief, which is without hope ; a sorrow which, with 
too much of the goodness of mankind, is like the 
morning cloud and the early dew, that passeth away. 
There may be a sorrow of affectation and show, 
which, except it were to be denounced as hypocrisy 
before God, we should only ridicule for its inde- 
scribable meanness and absurdity before men. Lastly, 
there may be the sorrow of despair, or of murmuring 
against God, charging him foolishly. And all these 
are but parts of that sorrow, which finds no solace in 
religion, and only worketh death. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 143 



SOME USES OF AFFLICTION. 



They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weeepeth, 
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing 
his sheaves with him. 



Every Christian admits that the trials, by which is 
here meant the sufferings of life, are to be ascribed 
directly to God as their source, and to none but him. 
And as every Christian considers this Being as clothed 
with every endearing as well as every adorable attri- 
bute, he must infer that these trials, whatever may be 
their apparent character, are intended to subserve, and 
therefore must subserve wise and beneficent purposes. 
This conclusion we could not avoid, though in the 
present life we could not perceive any evidence of its 
truth. But in point of fact we can, in a vast majority 
of instances, see the connection between these trials and 
gracious ends, which, in the present constitution of 
things, cQuld not be secured without them. 

It would not be difficult to illustrate this in regard 
to adversity, as it is called, in all its forms. Thus, 
for example, the necessity for constant toil and effort, 
which is imposed upon most men by the weakness 
and imperfection of their natures, and by the con- 
stantly recurring necessities of their condition in this 



144 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

world, is ordinarily considered among the severe trials 
of life. We may wish, in the darkness of our wisdom, 
to be delivered from this. But upon sober reflection 
it will be found, that by far the greater part of the 
happiness of life is derived from this very source. 
It furnishes, and indeed renders necessary that occu- 
pation of body and mind, and that healthful series of 
engagements, which are " the very material of con- 
tented existence." 

Those gratifications in which the mind is passive, 
and which pass commonly under the name of pleas- 
ures, though they are the great objects of pursuit to 
multitudes, are nevertheless of very little value in a 
just estimate of human happiness. Indeed, if life had 
nothing better than these to give, life would not be 
worth possessing. Any elaborate illustration of this 
remark is necessarily precluded here. But that it is 
substantially true, may appear from the conduct of 
those who are placed, I had almost said by the unkind- 
ness of Providence, above the necessity of any per- 
sonal exertion for the supply of their necessities. You 
will see them attempting to devise uncalled for em- 
ployment for themselves ; creating various factitious 
wants ; exceedingly busy with trifles ; running to friv- 
olous engagements, in the hope of running from self- 
weariness, and of avoiding the emptiness of their own 
hearts and minds. 

Thus too, sudden and severe reverses, disappoint- 
ments, and the privation of common and accustomed 
privileges and blessings, are regarded as among the 
dark dealings of God's providence. The spirit sinks 
at their approach, and few are able to bear them well. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 145 

But they are fraught with salutary counsels, which 
continued prosperity never could impart. They teach 
us how many of our wants are fancied, artificial, un- 
real ; and how few of all the things which men ear- 
nestly covet, are really necessary to human happiness. 
They show us what a heavy tribute we pay to vanity ; 
what a "tax the eyes of others impose upon us;" 
and how numerous and importunate are the claims of 
unnecessary self-indulgence. They assist us in break- 
ing unworthy habits, which may be growing into iron 
hardness and strength. They help us in acquiring the 
virtues of self-restraint and enlightened self-denial, 
and thus aid in gaining freedom of will, the power of 
using our faculties to the best advantage, and of es- 
tablishing ourselves in the government of ourselves. 

They enable us moreover, as nothing else can, to 
estimate the value of our common privileges and en- 
joyments. We can never feel as we ought to feel, 
how rich and full and continuous is the stream of 
beneficence which God is pouring upon the world, but 
by a temporary interruption in its flow. It is the 
prisoner, after a long confinement to his lonely cell, 
cut off from all the ordinary engagements, companion- 
ships, and sympathy of men, whose eyes have been 
compelled to rest upon the same objects day after 
day? year after year ; — it is he that can best tell you 
what are the blessings of the common air and sun- 
light, and what a privilege it is to walk abroad, with 
none to hinder, amidst the glory and beauty of the 
heavens above and the earth beneath. It is the exile 
in a foreign land, that can give you the best interpre- 
tation of the word home. It is danger felt or feared 
10 



146 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

for ourselves or others, which alone can make us real- 
ize how great and indispensable is the constant care 
of God. And if we would know the priceless value 
of the comnfion blessing of health, we can only learn 
it fronn the sad history of the sick-room. 

In like manner, there are important uses to be de- 
rived from pain, that is, physical suffering; which is 
commonly considered an unmingled evil. It is often 
a friendly and timely admonition of wants and dangers 
to which we are continually exposed ; and without its 
kind ministry in some of its* forms, life could, not be 
preserved a day. It subserves moral purposes still 
more important. There is a necessary and an indisso- 
luble connection between every improper animal indul- 
gence and bodily pain. In every such case, it is a 
voice in which our outraged natures cry out for mercy, 
and beseech us to spare ourselves. It is a '' sort of 
bodily conscience" that warns us of every departure 
from a strict and enlightened self-control, reproaches 
us for every deviation from its laws, and thus, in a 
vast variety of instances, prevents single acts of excess 
from becoming fixed habits. 

Sickness and bereavement, at once the most frequent 
and desolating of our trials, are yet united with moral 
uses of the most practical and important kind. They 
have often been pointed out, and are familiar to every 
serious and thoughtful spirit. The passive virtues; 
just views of the nature and tenure of the present life ; 
a realizing sense of the inherent wants of the soul ; a 
proper apprehension of our mutual dependence ; and 
especially a soul-felt appropriation of the grand reali- 
ties of Christian faith; — these are among the precious 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 147 

instructions and results of sickness and bereavement. 
Indeed it may be truly said, that without their severe 
yet kind discipline, no character can attain its best or 
any very high perfection. 

Without attempting any more particular development 
of the specific uses which each of these trials are in- 
tended to subserve, I shall only offer two general 
remarks, which are common to them all. 

The first is, that affliction in all its forms has a 
direct tendency to soften the character, and to call 
forth and improve all the benevolent affections. No- 
thing is more true than the common remark, that our 
own suflTering is the best source of sympathy for others. 
And it is equally true, moreover, that affliction is the 
best instructor in every kind office of sympathy. It 
not only excites and sustains benevolent emotion, but 
teaches its most soothing and fitting expression. 
There is, — and here the consciousness of many will 
answer to the sentiment, — there is an entireness and 
fulness of responsive feeling; a prophetic anticipation 
of the wants of others; a delicate mode of expressing 
kindness, which confers while it seemingly seeks a 
favor; an adaptation of language, manner, look and 
tone, which the heart of the sufferer recognises and 
understands, but which no language can describe, no 
training teach, and no art imitate ; — in fine, there is a 
balm and healing efficacy in tender offices of sym- 
pathy, which nothing but affliction can teach. 

On the other hand, it is the natural tendency of 
prosperity to render the heart cold and insensible to 
the claims of others. I say tendency, for there are 
some natures so genial and kind, and others so deeply 



148 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

imbued with the spirit of our religion, that even pros- 
perity cannot spoil them. But still it is the natural 
tendency of a prosperous condition to render men 
thoroughly selfish, and dispose them to view every 
thing in reference to their own accommodation. This 
selfishness may be disguised in various ways, and 
even from themselves. It may be kept out of their 
view by some obvious acts of munificence, or by a 
prevailingly good humor, which they mistake for a 
general benevolence, or by consulting occasionally the 
happiness of others, where this costs no personal sacri- 
fice. But still it is a serpent that loves to lurk amidst 
the rich foliage, and fragrant atmosphere, and wide- 
spread branches, and palmy honors of a full-blown 
prosperity ; and it does lurk there often when its 
presence, as has been said, is least suspected. 

Affliction too creates a new bond among human 
hearts. In all cases, a participation in any sentiment 
of deep concern brings all who share it nearer together. 
But those who have suffered and wept together in a 
sorrow common to both, are thereby brought into a 
communion peculiarly tender, and have a language 
and an intercourse peculiarly their own. 

Thus affliction opens new sources of sympathetic 
feeling. But the effect stops not here. Every emo- 
tion naturally suggests a train of others similar to 
itself, and this is especially true of all the softer 
emotions. Thus it is, that " pity is akin to love.'' 
The heart that has been once touched by deep sorrow, 
is thereby predisposed and prepared for the admission 
of all the benevolent affections. It renders it more 
humane, gentle, tender, more accessible to every 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 149 

generous affection. It makes men more considerate, 
more watchful against giving offence, more regardful 
of the feelings of others, more disposed to acts of 
kindness. And when, from disappointment and deso- 
lation of our hopes, or from any cause, we are made 
to feel the insecurity and unsatisfactoriness of present 
objects, has not an unwonted seriousness pervaded our 
spirits; have not all turbulent feelings been stilled; 
and humility and resignation and filial trust been 
inspired ; those hopes and fears that range upward 
and onward beyond the line of time, been awakened ; 
and a sense of God's nearness to us, and of our 
dependence and accountableness to Him, taken full 
possession of our souls ? Thus it is, that affections 
which were first called into exercise by the loss of 
"things seen and temporal,'' lead to those which fix 
on " things unseen and eternal." Thus it is also, by 
the kind ministry of suffering, the whole character is 
softened and improved. 

But the connection of the hardier and more active 
virtues with affliction is not less real. And this is the 
other general remark 1 proposed to offer. It is adver- 
sity in some of its aspects, which alone can discover 
us to ourselves ; lay open what is weak and develope 
what is strong within us; make known to us our own 
resources ; teach self-command and a just self-reli- 
ance ; free us from many vain illusions ; show us the 
real basis of human expectations and the true sources 
of human happiness ; give their proper impression to 
the great truths of our religion ; exhibit the power and 
immortality of human affections ; and impress our 
minds with the ineffable importance of those promises, 
which *' lay hold on everlasting life." 



150 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Do we not here see some valuable uses of affliction ? 
Do not these trials reveal blessings to us which unin- 
terrupted prosperity never could make known ? Are 
we not thus taught, that God designs us for something 
better than a mere passive earthly enjoyment; that 
He loves us better than we love ourselves, and there- 
fore consults for that higher welfare, in a better world, 
which we, in our ignorance and devotion to present 
objects, should otherwise forego ? Do we not perceive 
that these trials are the sources of much that is really 
valuable in character; that they are necessary to fit 
us for that happiness which can alone meet the aspi- 
rations of the human soul, and for which the soul was 
made — the joys of a meek self-approval here on 
earth, and an abiding hope of God's acdeptance in 
heaven ? 

Thus, to adopt the beautiful allusion of the Psalmist, 
we are placed in this present *' trial state," like the 
husbandman who is preparing for a future harvest. 
He goes forth, it may be, amidst lowering skies and 
chilling winds and threatening storms. The very seed 
he sows may be taken from the scanty store which is 
necessary to his subsistence. It is covered in the com- 
mon earth, and for all that then appears, it is buried 
there only to decay. A thousand accidents may inter- 
fere to blight his hopes. *^ He sows in tears." But 
he need not despond. As surely as God is faithful, 
his labor shall not be lost. His trust in Providence 
shall not deceive him. The Lord of the harvest will 
watch over the buried and decaying seed. He will 
quicken it with new life. He will breathe into it new 
principles of growth. He will bid the elements go 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 151 

and minister to its well-being. He will watch it in its 
upspringing and in its progress. He will guard it 
from the storm, the mildew, and the frost. He will 
carry it forward to its maturity. He will make it mul- 
tiply itself a thousand fold. Then shall the husband- 
man " reap in joy." And though " he went forth 
weeping, bearing the precious seed, yet shall he come 
again with rejoicing, bringing the full sheaves with 
him." And thus, too, in regard to the sufferings of 
this probatiouary state, we are called often " to sow in 
tears ; " but if we are faithful and faint not, we shall 
" reap in joy." And though we go forth weeping 
here below, bearing the precious seed of trial, yet 
may we look for full sheaves of that harvest, which is 
to be reaped hereafter in the paradise of God. 



152 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



LIGHT FROM DARKNESS, AND LIFE IN DEATH. 



The people which sat in darkness saw great light ; and to them which sat in 
the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. 



Christ is the light of the world. The world has 
yet to learn how much it is indebted to Him for its 
light and life. It is slow to acknowledge its obliga- 
tions to the clear and full revelation which he brought. 
It talks still of the revelations of nature, forgetting 
how much these themselves owe to the light of Chris- 
tianity. They who have been born and educated as 
Christians are often little aware, they never can know 
precisely, how much the truths and influences of 
revelation have blended with those of nature, and 
become a part of their being. Our debt to the Chris- 
tian faith is greater than we can estimate. 

Especially is this true in regard to views of suffer- 
ing and death. How defective and comfortless were 
these views at the best, before Christ came, is known 
to all. With him, doubt became assurance, and de- 
spair was raised to calm and cheerful faith. "The 
people which sat in darkness saw great light ; and to 
them which dwelt in the region and shadow of death, 
light is sprung up." And now hope is born, and 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 



153 



solace and peace come to the suffering but believing 
spirit, in what we call* natural ways. Thank God, to 
us they are natural. We feel, we know, that sorrows 
are not ends, but means. Afflictions become our 
helpers. Death is not only a monitor, but a revealer. 
And often does it reveal to us, not the power alone, 
but the very existence and character of the Comfort- 
er. " If I go not away, the Comforter will not come 
unto you ; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." 

Let us contemplate some of the most natural truths, 
which suffering and death bring to us. 

One of the first forms of human consciousness is a 
sense of relationship and attachment. As children, 
indeed, as infants, we learn that w^e have intimate rela- 
tions to those around us, and become imperceptibly 
but most strongly and tenderly attached to them. The 
attachment is mutual, and grows with our growth until 
it takes hold of all the chords, and draws in all the 
affections of filial and fraternal being. And then, as 
years advance, and the calls of life take us away 
from the hope of our childhood, and we feel the 
want and the glow of new affections, other relations 
are formed and another home created ; more distinct 
in its character, because more voluntary and perma- 
ment. With this, all other relations, all affections and 
interests, purposes, experiences, joys and sorrows, are 
blended. It becomes our life. It touches every spring 
of our being, and is bound and swayed by all the 
sympathies and hopes of humanity. And when this 
relation has been thus cemented for years, has been 
nursed by all the smiles and frowns of earth and 
heaven, and become identified with every part and 



154 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

prospect and desire of life — it is hroken. A dear 
child is taken from those who had never tasted sorrow, 
or a parent removed from those who had not thought 
of it as possible. The light of that home is turned 
to darkness ; its unutterable joy to unutterable bitter- 
ness. 

Now it is the first thought, suggested by this or any 
of the bereavements which snap the strongest bonds, 
it is the inquiry unavoidably forced upon the mind — 
'^ Who hath done this ? " Who is it, that hath given 
us such a life, placed us in such a world, endued us 
with such affections, invested us with objects to which 
these affections cling for existence, and then torn 
them away by an invisible hand, and without a word 
of explanation, perhaps without a sound of warning ? 
Who is it, or what ? It is either blind Fate, or a des- 
potic and malignant Spirit, or a mysterious but benev- 
olent Being who gives and removes in equal mercy. 
There is no other choice. There is no refuge or pos- 
sible solution beside. And here I stand, says the 
sufferer, to decide which of these I can and will be- 
lieve. From the first, the idea of fate or chance, my 
mind at once revolts. It explains nothing, but adds 
itself to the thousand miracles and mysteries, itself 
the greatest and darkest of all. From the next, the 
thought of a malignant despot, lifting up only to dash 
to the ground, encircling and filling with love only 
from a principle of hate and for the creation of misery 
— not the reason only, but the conscience and the 
heart turn away. The world gives no proof, no inti- 
mation of such an iron despotism or savage malignity. 
I see it not on any side, at the worst I find it not in 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 155 

any part of my frame, nor is there in my nature the 
capacity to believe it. It cannot be. 

And what remains? But one conclusion, from which 
there is no escape. On this I am thrown by the very 
sufferings which rend and prostrate. These must come 
from one who loves, for all things testify that he does 
not and cannot hate. They must be sent in love and 
for good, because any other supposition involves worse 
contradictions; and because, in the power of these 
sorest afflictions, under their pressure, and as their 
direct result, there springs up in the soul, as multitudes 
have experienced, an awe, a trust, a serenity, and even 
a love, such as nothing else, no blessings of health, 
friends or uninterrupted happiness have been able or 
would be able to produce. How many a sufferer has 
said, '* I know that He who so severely chastens does 
love. I feel it. It is not a mocker or torturer. It 
is a friend. It is the Father." And the rebellious 
child is thus subdued. The wandering son is brought 
back. Terrible is the discipline, but gracious the pur- 
pose, and glorious the end. Light springs from dark- 
ness. 

And the reflection forced upon every spirit that is 
bowed by the mighty hand of God, belongs to the sense 
of account ableness. In seasons of heavy affliction it is 
difficult to escape the conviction that this affliction is 
designed for correction. We feel that it is needed, 
and that great must be the weakness, if not great the 
sinfulness, which requires a discipline so sore, or makes 
a Father willing to inflict it. There must be some sin- 
gular hardness, which requires an almost crushing blow 
to break and soften it. Not that we are thus to judge 



156 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Others who are afflicted, but that it is natural and 
almost unavoidable so to judge ourselves. We are 
never to measure any one's goodness or wickedness by 
his outward experience ; scarcely can we do it by the 
little we see of his real conduct. Neither should we 
suffer ourselves to magnify our own humility, when 
we think or speak of our Father's chastisements as 
merited corrections. But the conviction itself it is diffi- 
cult to escape. There is nothing more fearful in the 
hours of deep sorrow than the thought of the great 
moral purpose, the vast spiritual accountableness, which 
they involve. The blessings of life bring with them a 
solemn responsibility. But how solemn, how peculiar 
that, which belongs to sufferings ; such as must either 
melt or indurate the heart on which they fall. When 
the bright sky is suddenly overcast, and hopes that 
never feared are blasted ; when the beloved of the soul 
falls powerless from your agonized embrace, and the 
awed and stricken spirit feels as if alone in the dark- 
ening world, let it weep — it must — but let not its 
gushing tears leave it dry and rigid and cold. God of 
mercy ! inscrutable but compassionate, save us from 
this greatest of sufferings. Save us all. Thou dost 
afflict all. In Thine own time and way, Thou comest 
in dread power, early or late, suddenly or gently, yet 
soon enough and severely enough to teach us our 
weakness and Thy will. Let it humble us. Let it con- 
vict and convert. Let not the spirit be quenched, the 
spirit of might and desolation that moves upon the 
broken hearts of thy children. Let it not be grieved 
away, until its full purpose is revealed and our ac- 
countableness felt. Can aught else have more power, 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 157 

or such power, to move the soul ? O let that dark 
messenger who visits house after house and strikes 
the lightest and the hardest heart, not merely he gazed 
upon in amusement, grief and stupor; but allowed, 
yea, invited and helped to utter his whole message 
and perform speedily his benevolent mission. Let 
death be swallowed up in the victory, not only of faith 
and submission, but of humility and penitence, in- 
creased piety, and a true spirituality. 

The reflections that throng the excited or subdued 
mind in seasons of trial, are not all painful. None are 
of unmixed pain, where there is any power of Chris- 
tian faith. Many there are of settled though chasten- 
ed delight. Faith itself, we all know, is nurtured by 
trial. It seems often indeed to be born of sorrow, and 
reared, strengthened, perfected, by the woes of sepa- 
ration, the anguish of bereavement. It is common to 
say this, at least. But is it not also common to doubt 
if not to deride the doctrine ? To many it seems fan- 
ciful, to many feigned, and to few even of believers 
does it appear to have disclosed its whole truth. Yet 
are we confident, there are few truths more sure, none 
more consoling or convincing. With those who are 
led to note particularly the effect of different events on 
different minds, it is matter of frequent observation, 
that affliction does that for the growth of faith, which 
all other influences fail to do. Not always nor so often 
as it should, but so often, comparatively, that we look 
and hope for this, where there is little other ground of 
hope. When death and darkness come, men learn, if 
not before, what their nature is; to what it is exposed, 
and by what sustained ; what it needs and craves. 



158 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

More than this, they then find that the future is not so 
remote, nor eternity all strange and unreal. The 
future and eternity are made sure. They are brought 
close around them. Their own relation to them is re- 
vealed. Their portion in them is seen and felt. They 
have an interest there now. They have treasure there. 
A part of themselves is there. The parent who gave 
them being, the brother or sister who shared that being, 
the child who was all their own — is there — and they 
are there also. Their nature, all their affections were 
reposed, wrapped in these objects, and you cannot, no 
power can, change, death, worlds cannot, sever them 
wholly. Their very removal to an unknown state 
makes that state known. Their flight into the distant 
and dark future illumines that future. The angel of 
death who bore the loved away, opened the heavens 
as he ascended — and now the eye of faith penetrates, 
the heart of faith lives in that spiritual world. There 
is sorrow and trembling yet. But there is hope, the 
anchor of the soul. There is faith, the very substance 
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
There is prayer and communion, the soul's pinions, on 
which it soars to« the bright presence of the spirits it 
here loved, the Saviour whom it trusts, the Father in 
whom it dwells. From the region and shadow of 
death, light is sprung up. It is the light of God's 
countenance, and it irradiates the features, the souls 
with which we have long been familiar, with which 
we may now live for ever. 

"Is not the dream of heaven more sweet, 
Bright with those living forms of love ? 



TO THE AFFLICTED, 159 

l)oes not each trial that we meet, 
Raise our rapt spirits more above ? 

Yes : death, that pales our curdliog cheek, 

Tells of an angel's opening bliss j 
Again we view the form we seek, 

Bright with immortal happiness.*' 



160 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY. 



THE SPIRIT'S SONG OF CONSOLATION * 

Dear parents, grieve no more for me. 

My parents, grieve no more ! 
Believe that I am happier far 

Than even with you before. 
I've left a world where woe and sin 

Swell onward as a river, 
And gained a world where I shall rest - 

In peace and joy for ever. 

Our Father bade me come to him. 

He gently bade me come, 
And he has made his heavenly house 

My dwelling place and home ; 
On that best day of all the seven, ' 

Which saw the Saviour rise, 
I heard the voice you could not hear, 

Which called me to the skies. 

I saw too, what you could not see, 

Two beauteous angels stand ; 
They smiling stood and looked at me, 

And beckoned with their hand -, 
They said they were my sisters dear. 

And they were sent to bear 
My spirit to their blest abode. 

To live for ever there. 

* This song, first written for the Youth's Keepsake, is supposed to be ad- 
dressed by the departed spirit of a boy to his parents, who had lost two other 
children before him. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 161 

Then think not of the mournful time 

When I resigned my breath, 
Nor of the place where I was laid, 

The gloomy house of death : 
But think of that high world, where I 

No more shall suffer pain ; 
And of the time when all of us 

In heaven shall meet again. 



11 



162 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE EARLY DEAD. 

That parents should precede the children whom 
they had introduced into this world, to another — for 
whose welfare they had labored — over whom they 
had watched — to whose protection, guidance, edu- 
cation, happiness, they had freely devoted time, 
strength, substance ; — that children should nurse 
and tend the parents of whom they were born, if so 
be their second childhood come, — or watch by their 
dying bed and close their eyes — this seems natural — 
what we might expect — in the ordinary course of 
things. But when all this is reversed : when the 
lovely infant, the bright and beautiful child, or youth 
in its finest and fullest promise are taken away ; when 
our hands and our strength are tasked to perform the 
last sad offices to the early dead, those whom God had 
made the delight of our eyes and the pride and joy of 
our hearts ; we are startled as at something strange, 
unnatural, most mysterious. It makes great demand 
on our faith. It tasks it severely. It exercises it, as 
we" think, in an unusual manner and degree ; and we 
turn with aching and anxious hearts to the sources of 
consolation, almost fearing lest in such a case they 
must prove empty and powerless. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 163 

They who die early, are of necessity spared many 
sorrows, many severe trials and sufferings. Not that 
young life has not its full measure of suffering ; all 
know that it has. Most of us have at times felt that this 
is among the most inscrutable things in the providence 
of a benevolent God. Still, as the human being ad- 
vances in life, its web in most cases becomes more and 
more interwoven with suffering, with trial ; pains and 
sorrows accumulate with increasing years ; if any be 
largely exempt on their own account or personally, 
they have yet to share them for others' sakes ; and thus 
to many, very many, life is but a wearisome burden, 
and except for the hope of another and higher life beyond 
the grave, would be absolutely insupportable. Could 
we look into the private history of almost any individ- 
ual or family — I care not how bright and gay an 
exterior either may wear — we should find a multitude 
of sorrows chequering the page, to a degree otherwise 
scarcely credible. There is an instinctive desire on 
the part of all, to keep the bitterest woes which each 
experiences to one's self, or one's household ; hence 
we too frequently meet each other in smiles, when the 
heart is throbbing and well nigh bursting with anguish. 
They who die early are, in a great measure, spared 
this. They have gone to a more blessed world ; to 
the " house " of a better than any earthly parent — to 
a sphere of perennial light and joy, where there can 
be " no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither 
can there be any more pain." Who would recal them 
to a world, where at the best if there be pleasure, it 
must be transient — if there be happiness, it must 
vanish like the morning cloud — where there must be 



164 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

grief, and disappointment, and wretchedness, and 
anxieties unavoidable and in great number, and hard, 
as your own experience already has proved, hard, 
hard to bear. 

They who die early are spared, beside, many temp- 
tations and dangers. And though a sufficiently dark 
picture might be drawn of the possible hardships 
through which they must have struggled, if by any 
fair means they would have secured a comfortable 
outward lot in life, there is a higher view to be taken. 
Think of the labor by which, if at all, the lofty virtue 
of the perfect Christian character is to be achieved — 
of the temptations from within and without to be met 
and vanquished, before the holy and self-denying prin- 
ciples of the gospel can be thoroughly and fixedly 
wrought into the soul — of the constant danger to which 
the best-tried fahh is exposed, in its conflict with still 
greater and severer trials. How few, even of the 
most advanced in the school of this world's discipline, 
walk the rough waters of life with a steady step ! 
How few — are there any ? — who yield to no temptation 
— whose moral armor has no breaches — who are al- 
ways firm, always victorious, and have remained always 
pure ! Can we think, then, with aught but a chastened 
joy and thankfulness of those, who have been largely 
spared all these moral exposures ; who have gone, 
resigned and submissive to the will of God, or in the 
innocence of their newborn spirits, to a world of purity 
and peace ; who have only exchanged, what though it 
be the bright and sunny holiday of childhood or early 
youth, for still brighter, truer, endless, surpassing 
bliss } 



J 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 165 

Is it suggested that thus early taken, they are taken 
in the germ and spring-time of their being, before the 
facuhies and affections have received even the fullest 
development or most perfect culture of earth ? True ; 
but do you think that they will find none to help, none 
to educate, none to guide them in the heavenly world ? 
Think you that in the bright company of angels, in 
the pure society of the redeemed already gathered 
there, God has annointed none to this holy office ? 
Believe it not. Other hands, stronger than yours, are 
leading them on ; other minds, more richly gifted 
and furnished than yours, are aiding to unfold and 
exalt theirs ; other love, tenderer even and wiser than 
yours, has already embraced them. Their Father in 
heaven has welcomed them home ; Christ their Sa- 
viour has clasped them to his bosom, and enrolled 
them among the hosts of the blest. Already, then, 
they are surrounded by purest influences, encircled 
by a holy companionship, supplied most amply with 
all means and aids for an unending and glorious 
progress. Already they have entered on a celestial 
career of ever-growing knowledge, holiness, and bliss. 
Would you recall them from their bright abodes } 
Would you deprive them of that heavenly education ? 
Would you tear them from that ineffable blessedness, 
only to expose them anew to the rude changes, the 
mighty temptations, the inevitable troubles, perplex- 
ities, dangers of this world ? Would it be kind in 
you ? would you not be cruel to them ? Is it not 
better, infinitely better — on reflection would you not 
prefer, that they be there ; safe from all harm ; under 
the guardianship of loftier and purer spirits than any 



166 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

here ; enjoying God's felt presence and love, and 
becoming more and more worthy of your own love 
and care, against the hour when it shall please Him 
to reunite you ? How rapt in ecstasy will be your 
souls, if you are only here true to your Christian obliga- 
tions, when, amid the glories of that higher state, those 
darling objects of your earthly affection shall be 
restored to you, made angels themselves by the angel- 
teachers to whom God had entrusted them ! 

The early death of children reveals often with 
peculiar force the depth and fulness of the parents' 
own love for their offspring. Most parents think, not 
only that they love their children quite as much as 
they ought, but that they know how much they love 
them. But the depths of that deep fount of tender- 
ness and affection imbedded by the Creator in the 
parental heart, are perhaps never sounded until severe 
disease has fastened its remorseless grasp on our 
children, or death has laid them low. The sweet 
smile with which they greet us, the soft and delicate 
intonations of voice in which at times they clothe 
their infant or childish prattle or their words of mere 
natural affection, the hearty exuberance of joy with 
which they return our caresses, all, all have more 
than magic power. And yet, to hang over the child 
writhing in pain and agony, and feel that we cannot 
relieve it — to find all medical skill and care utterly 
baffled — their little hands and eyes imploring us 
with a mute, indeed, but most touching eloquence, 
yet all in vain; — still worse, to stand by their silent 
remains, " beautiful '* it may be, " beautiful even in 
death," and realize that what every day and year 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 167 

had intertwined closer and closer with our hearts 
has left the world forever, and ourselves alone ; 
then, and not till then, is the strength, the intensity of 
that love which we had felt and cherished for them, re- 
vealed amid our almost utter desolateness of soul. 
But it is here precisely that we should remember that 
we are the children of God. In the strength and 
devotedness of our affection for our departed children, 
He declares to us afresh His own parental character ; 
enables us the better to comprehend how tender His 
care and regard for us, how impossible that He should 
afflict or grieve us except for our good ; and fits us 
to appreciate aright the end of the trial, severe though 
it be, with which we are visited. How is this over- 
whelming, crushing calamity lightened by the assurance 
now brought home to the heart, that our heavenly 
Father holds us still within His all-encircling and 
infinite love, and would bring us nearer to Himself in 
spirit, in purpose, in deed ! 

How, too, does the early death of children, espe- 
cially when others survive, reveal the true grandeur 
and solemnity of the parental relation and office. I 
fear that too few, under the ordinary circumstances 
of life, duly feel this. How faithful soever up to that 
hour parents may have thought themselves, the cases 
must still be rare, when they can stand by the lifeless 
body of a beloved child assured, beyond all misgiving, 
that they have faithfully and to the utmost discharged 
their parental duty. Even this, however, is not the 
exact point. They had never before felt, perhaps, 
or never so fully, that God had entrusted to them in 
the gift of children, the charge and education of im- 



168 AM OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

mortal spirits. Yet what is their chief consolation at 
that hour ? Is it not, that the child which is taken is 
not lost to them forever — that it was a deathless soul, 
— that it has entered a heaven of blessedness and 
rest ? Will they not turn away from the grave which 
receives that lifeless body, more impressed than ever 
with their duty to their surviving children ? Will 
they not be more careful to lead them to God 
and Christ — to charge them with holy principle — 
to guide them into the paths of virtue and piety — to 
aid them to become prepared for a re-union with the 
sainted spirit of the departed ? 

If this be true, the early death of their children 
must bring nearer also to the parents' hearts the spirit- 
world — invest it with more reality — make it a theme 
of more tender and engaging contemplation — give 
it increased power as an object of fixed, peculiar, 
personal interest. That spirit-world is no longer a 
distant, or wholly a strange world. Heaven must 
seem near to any Christian parents who have buried 
children. It has received an accession to its society 
from those most familiar and dear to their hearts. 
Some who dwell there they know. — Reader, is it so 
with you? Have you "buried out of your sight" 
your beloved *' dead ? '* Have you given back to the 
dust the perishing body of a cherished child ? One 
spirit, then, at least, with whom you have enjoyed 
intimate, endeared, most delightful, though brief 
communion, is in Heaven. One who dwells there 
you know. Under God, you have added to the glo- 
rious assembly already surrounding the throne. Even 
though it be by the death of one so loved, it is well 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 169 

that the spirit-world be brought thus near. Do not 
stifle this train of thought. Do not permit it to die 
unimproved. Do not lose sight, — as the cares of this 
world return and rush again upon you, and the flow 
of time wears and dulls the edge of your sorrow, — 
do not lose sight of that spirit-world. God grant that 
you may not ! God grant that your trial may be 
blessed to you now and forever ! 



170 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE CHRISTIAN'S IMMORTALITY. 

In what a new aspect the Christian doctrine of im- 
mortality clothes the world ! It changes the face of 
every thing around us. It places every one of our 
actions in a most important, a thrilling point of view. 
The humblest sphere of life contracts a dignity and 
splendor from the relation which it thus assumes. The 
little inequalities of condition, the variations in rank, 
fortune, power, intellect, whereon man too often and 
too fondly prides himself, sink down to an humbling, 
a level sameness, when inspected through this glass 
which borrows its light from eternity. Since immor- 
tality has been revealed to my eyes by Christ, I see a 
new value in every earthly object ; not indeed for itself 
alone, but for the consequences and relations with 
which it may be elsewhere collected. I mourn not 
over the fleeting and decaying nature of the objects of 
sense. For I know that these shadows are to be re- 
placed by substances ; that these dreams are but the 
images of more enduring realities. " O Death ! where 
is thy sting ! O Grave ! where is thy victory ! *' If 
that sting and that victory are removed, how is our 
whole being changed ! Tears, despair, fears, wretch- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 171 

ednes^, and a sense of supreme insignificance and con- 
teniptibleness, which must so often overwhelm the 
mere philosopher of nature, are triumphantly removed 
by the Christian doctrine of immortality. 

The doctrine may be abused. It may betray us into 
spiritual pride or fanatical presumption. Religion has 
suffered much in consequence of the rash and daring 
imaginations of many of its votaries, v/ho have under- 
taken to be wise above what is written, and to describe 
the realities of heaven and hell, with a minuteness and 
familiarity not at all becoming uninspired mortals. 
We have no business to prj^ with a fond curiosity into 
those secret things, which are hopelessly hidden from 
our view. If we indulge our dreamy speculations on 
the subject, will there not be danger that our practical 
principles will be loosened, and that we shall forget or 
despise the common and humble duties of life, while 
dwelling too exclusively on what, after all, and at 
best, can only amount to the exercise of a visionary 
fancy ? 

And yet the greatest danger of our abusing this 
solemn doctrine, is of a description quite opposite to 
this. We are liable to think not enough upon it, rather 
than too much. We dismiss it from our minds. We 
live, as if it were not true. We live as if this world 
were our all. Specially careful should we be to bear 
against this side of our spiritual delinquencies. 

How shall we then best use and improve the Christian 
doctrine of immortal life. Surely we need it on vari- 
ous accounts, in this our pilgrimage through the wil- 
derness. We need it, to protect the weakness of our 
virtuous principles, and to repel us away from the 



172 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

mighty power of sin. We need it under the multiplied 
sorrows and evils of life. Indeed, we need it, to sat- 
isfy those indefinite longings, which nothing around us 
will satify. Plant but a moderate hope of heaven in 
the spirit of any man, and he is as happy as human 
nature can bear. Therefore let us beware of throwing 
away this choicest treasure of our existence. Mourner! 
will you part with it ? What else can heal your bruised 
and wounded affections } Victim of adversity ! will 
you resign it ? How little that is substantial and per- 
manent have you found in the enjoyments of earth. 
Gay and happy youth ! will you forget your native 
heaven ! If so, you are foregoing the only antidote to 
those stings of bitter disappointment, which will assu- 
redly cheat your present earthly hopes. Pilgrim of 
many years ! will you forfeit the birthright, of which 
the inheritance is almost now within your grasp ? 
What folly, what forgetfulness, what madness is this ! 
'* In my Father's house," said our Saviour, " are 
many mansions ! '* The emblem of a ''house" or 
family, under which heaven is here represented, im- 
plies evidently a state of social hafpiness. In this 
world, some of our highest enjoyments consist in re- 
ceiving and communicating ideas. Cold and wretched 
is the heart, from which the delights of sympathy are 
excluded. Man feels, as it were, the whole power of 
his being many times redoubled, when he can lean for 
support and society upon his fellow-creatures around. 
And it appears that this blessed law of our nature will 
not cease to operate, when our immortal parts shall 
be transferred to those regions of light and life, which 
Revelation has discovered to our hopes. Sympathies 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 173 

more pure, friendships more intimate, confidence more 
implicit and better founded, assistance more unwearied, 
mutual obligations more valuable, than we can now 
conceive of, will undoubtedly contribute to lift our 
being up the long ascent of growing happiness which 
lies before it. *' As we have borne the image of the 
earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." 
We are promised the society of '* just men made per- 
fect.'' '' And if I go," says Jesus, '* and prepare a 
place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto 
myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." 

This promise of our Saviour, '^ that where I am, 
there ye may be also," seems to be a decided testi- 
mony in favor of the cheering doctrine, that the friend- 
ship of this world may be recognized and renewed in 
heaven. When the thinking and ever-living princi- 
ple within us shall be clothed with a new body, it 
will undoubtedly preserve the same individuality of 
character which it here sustains ; otherwise we cannot 
conceive of its being a proper subject of those retri- 
butions which shall be due to it for *'the deeds done 
in the body." Now if it preserves the same general 
character, it evidently follows, that earthly friendships 
and connections will probably be renewed, accompa- 
nied with high degrees of that joy resulting from meet- 
ing again after a long and dreary absence. And 
under what favorable circumstances will such friend- 
ships be recommenced ! No longer exposed to the 
coldness, the suspicions, the misunderstandings, the 
estrangements, which in this world too often afflict the 
noblest and most affectionate minds, they will look 
forward to a boundless enjoyment of mutual sympathy 



174 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

and improvement; nor this alone. The wise and the 
good of all past and all future ages will form one great 
communion, increased doubtless by beings of a higher 
order, recognizing and blessing each other, forever. 

Not only will the friendships of this world be proba- 
bly renewed and improved in heaven, but at all events, 
our great Leader and Master will be there. " 1 go to 
prepare a place for you, that where I am, ye may be 
also." The expected presence and society of Jesus, 
is one of the most animating prospects that can cheer 
and sustain the hopes of the pilgrim Christian. There 
we can study his character anew under the most per- 
fect advantages. No longer separated from him by 
centuries of darkness and ignorance, no longer com- 
pelled to gather the treasures of his wisdom at second- 
hand, or listen to his heavenly accents through a 
foreign and imperfect medium, our faith shall receive 
its full reward, and be indulged with delightful vision. 
He to whom we look for instruction, for example, for 
the moulding of a right spirit on earth, will assured- 
ly be the most appropriate object of our attachment 
while pursuing the employments, the duties, and the 
blessings of heaven. If we have wept here at the 
foot of his cross, shall we not triumph there around his 
throne ? If we have here endeavored to live as his 
faithful and obedient disciples, shall we not there be 
accepted as his companions aiid friends ? If we could 
here worship in his name, shall we not there be per- 
mitted to approach the presence of Jehovah beneath 
his auspicious guidance, to study the deep things of 
our Creator's character under the direction of the Re- 
deemer, and still to hail him as our Saviour, our 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 175 

Teacher, our Friend, through the ages of eternity ? 
'* If children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint heirs 
with Christ ; if we suffer with Him, that we may also 
be glorified together/' 

Thou who hast been doonied to bear the load of 
sorrow — thou who hast had thy fondest calculations 
and dearest expectations baffled by the hand of a mys- 
terious Providence — thou who hast had the chords of 
the sweetest affection, which had bound themselves 
round and into the very life-strings of thy heart, cut 
short by the hand of death — take to thyself this great 
doctrine of thy immortality, and of the immortality of 
all who are endeared to thee ! Cast thy burden upon 
the Lord ! Look up to Him and Him alone for com- 
fort ! Hold fast the religion which He has given thee 
by His Son, for from no other source can you derive 
the consoling conviction of immortality, and the in- 
spiring hope of reioining those *' who have fallen 
asleep in Jesus.'* 



176 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF SORROW. 

GoD^s Providence extends not only over the outward 
but the inward world ; and no view of His character 
is complete, which does not study the dealings of His 
Providence in the light of both these worlds. If we 
' look at the world without, we see a vast deal of evil 
which can be reconciled with God's goodness only by 
inquiring into its designed influence upon human char- 
acter and destiny. Things are not what they seem. 
Events are not evil or good, kind or cruel, according 
to their appearance to others. They are blessings or 
curses as they are received and improved, or rejected 
and misapplied by the inward man. When death en- 
ters our dwelling, it often brings more than it takes 
away. It removes a beloved child, it reveals and 
bestows a Father in heaven, an immortal life. The 
dreaded mesenger comes to break up a death-like 
apathy, to chasten a ruinous frivolity, to interrupt a 
settled worldliness. 

" Though He slay me,'' said Job, " j^et will I trust 
Him." Ah ! we rarely trust in God, until He has slain 
us. We never trust in Him, until we feel His mighty 
power in our hearts ; and our souls are not quickened and 
renewed until after we have suffered. , Even our blessed 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 177 

and holy Master was " made perfect through suffer- 
ing ; " and his Passion, through which he entered into 
glory, is but the type of the way by which we all enter 
the kingdom of heaven. 

When the experience of life, with its outward dis- 
appointments, its griefs, and its cares, has bereft us of 
external supports, we are driven back upon ourselves. 
Our interior resources are developed. We find there 
is strength to bear, as well as power to do ; and be- 
come conscious of a hitherto unknown satisfaction in 
bravely resisting evil, not inferior to the joy of receiv- 
ing good. This is a grand discovery. It opens to us 
a part of God's Providence we had not known, and 
obliges us to put a new construction upon the dispen- 
sations of his will. Much that we once called evil, 
we must now re-name as good ; and after we have 
struggled for a time in our pride to endure with stoical 
fortitude, or to resist with stern opposition the burdens 
and oppressions of life, we are gradually introduced 
to still deeper and loftier powers. It was a great step 
to fall away from external supports, back upon our- 
selves. But Jesus Christ teaches us a still greater step, 
to fall back from ourselves upon Grod. First we de- 
pended upon propitious circumstances for our happi- 
ness ; then change and disappointment taught us to 
depend upon our own energies, pride, endurance, 
resistance, and the pleasures of activity and independ- 
ence. This has sustained many a man nobly, and 
raised him above the disrespect of others and himself. 
It was the Roman virtue. But finally, sorrow, inter- 
preted by Jesus Christ, teaches us to fall back upon 
faith and hope, upon God. 
12 



178 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Blessed is *' the Man of Sorrows," who alone has 
revealed to us the true joy of life ! Blessed be that 
cross of Christ, on which the best of created beings 
died by the most painful of deaths, and in the most hu- 
miliating circumstances, with a triumphant faith in God, 
his sole and his all-sufficient support ! Sorrow, grief, 
and shame, ye are for evermore consecrated ! Come, 
disappointment, come ! Thy will, O God, be done. 
Who will not take up the cross and follow Jesus, if he 
' may share even an humble measure of His disposition 
and graces ? What trial needs explanation, after 
Jesus' death upon the cross? If God can offer his 
"holy child" upon that bloody altar, and still be a 
good and tender Father, may he not also ^* slay " us, 
and we still '* trust in Him ? " If Christ's sufferings 
won the salvation of the world, shall we thenceforward 
reckon suffering a curse from Heaven ? Are not our 
suflerings also our own salvation and the salvation of 
the world, in our humble measures ? We are "mem- 
bers one of another." We " bear each others bur- 
dens." We suffer for each other. We " weep with 
those that weep." Is not this the most beautiful part 
of us ? Could we part with the tenderness of heart, 
by which the agony of bereavement is made possible ? 
Who will consent to have his fountain of tears dried 
up ? Blessed be-God that we are " accounted worthy" 
to suffer with his Son, " that we may be also glorified 
together ! " 

Oh, how deep is the meaning of this world's disap- 
pointments and griefs, its imperfections, and partings, 
and sorrows ! What reveals to us the depths of our 
own souls, what awakens confidence in immortality, 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 179 

what calls forth our profoundest affections, our fervent 
longings, our unselfish and heavenly nature, like our 
direst afflictions ? As in the desert and on the ocean 
we have the strongest sensie of the sublime, so in the 
desolation of our hearts and amid the storms of the 
soul, do we feel most mightily our connection with a 
higher life and with God. We niust feel that we are 
left alone, before we are able with our Master to say, 
" and yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me ! " 
It is in our capacity of suffering, that we perceive one 
of the greatest proofs of our destiny. The burden we 
are called to bear is the Father's measure of our 
strength. 

And who that has suffered, and suffered faithfully, 
would relinquish the memory or the experience of a 
single pang ? Our joys end here ; our sorrows seem 
to reach into eternity. " Son, thou hast had thy good 
things and Lazarus his evil things ; but now he is com- 
forted, and thou art tormented." Our griefs give us a 
kind of claim upon God. They cry to heaven for 
interpretation. They tell us clearly we shall live till 
we see their end. God's justice and love are involved 
in this. Enjoyment has an end in itself; suffering 
more. Though our bodies might endure pain, our 
souls would not suffer were they not immortal. Thus 
it is that we feel our immortality never so strongly as 
in the darkness of affliction, be it nobly and submis- 
sively borne. 

Oh, what were we without sorrow ? Are not our deep- 
est joys linked in with and akin to our deepest sorrows ? 
In our happiest moments, we weep and smile at once. 
When is a noble soul so lovely to us, as under afflic- 



180 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

tion ? So the rich landscape takes a richer hue be- 
neath a clouded sky. When the manly heart melts 
beneath the smiting hand of God, then flows forth the 
most beautiful current of humanity. And what tears 
are in the eyes of a proud and reserved man, is sor- 
row to the world. 

^' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'' 
Yes, I will trust in Him the more, because He slays 
me. I will bless His gracious Providence, that He 
yields not to my weakness, but deals with me as a 
wise Father. I will bless God that He allows me not 
to settle into sluggish contentment on the earth. I will 
bless Him that He counts me worthy to suffer with the 
glorious company of the apostles, the holy army of 
martyrs, the saints throughout the earth, and the Sa- 
viour of the world ! I will bless Him that he is not 
only the Maker of my body, but the Preserver of my 
soul. " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 
In the covert of Thy wings will I take refuge, for they 
shall shelter me here, and bear me soon beyond the 
reach of suffering into " the rest that remaineth to the 
people of God." 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 181 



MY CHILD. 



I CANNOT make him dead ! 

His fair, sunshiny head, 
Is ever bounding round my study chair; 

Yet when my eyes, now dim 

With tears, I turn lo him, 
The vision vanishes, — he is not there ! 

I walk my parlor floor. 

And through the open door 
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ; 

I'm stepping towards the hall 

To give the boy a call ; 
And then bethink me that — he is not there. 

I thread the crowded street ; 

A satchelled lad I meet. 
With the same beaming eyes, and colored hair ; 

And as he's running by. 

Follow him with my eye. 
Scarcely believing that — he is not there ! 

I know his face is hid 
Under the coffin lid. 
Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead ; 
My hand that marble felt ; 
O'er it in prayer I knelt -, 
Yet my heart whispers that — he is not there 



182 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

I cannot make him dead ! 

"When passing by the bed, 
So long watched over with parental care, 

My spirit and my eye 

Seek it inquiringly, 
Before the thought comes that — he is not there. 

When at the cool, gray break 

Of day, from sleep I wake, 
With my first breathing of the morning air 

My soul goes up with joy, 

To Him who gave my boy, 
Then comes the sad thought that — he is not there ! 

When at the day's calm close. 

Before we seek repose, 
I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, 

Whate'er I may be saying, 

I am, in spirit, praying 
For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there ! 

, Not there ! where, then, is he ? 

The form I used to see 
Was but the raiment that he used to wear ; 

The grave, that now doth press 

Upon that cast-off dress. 
Is but his wardrobe locked ; — ^e is not there ! 

He lives ! — in all the past 

He lives ) nor to the last. 
Of seeing him again will I despair; 

In dreams I see him now ; 

And on his angel brow 
I see it written, *< Thou shall see me there! '* 

Yes, we all live to God ! 

Father, Thy chastening rod 
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, 

That, in the spirit land. 

Meeting at Thy right hand, 
'T will be a heaven to find that — he is there! 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 183 



SUFFERING INEVITABLE. 



Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? — Father, save me from this 
hour ? But for this cause came I unto this hour. 



Such was our Saviour's meditation: 'For this cause 
came I unto this hour' — even to suffer. My Father 
wills it. My mission requires it. Prophecy has fore- 
told it. It is that which must be — for wise ends — for 
the world's redemption. Through suffering and death 
must I open the way of millions to heaven. So shall 
God be manifested and honored. ' Shall I then say, 
save me from the coming hour ! ' Rather will I say, 
/ Father, glorify Thy name.' Then came there a 
voice from heaven saying — ' I have both glorified it, 
and- will glorify it again.' And the voice of thunder in 
the sky, at that moment breaking upon the ear of those 
that stood by, seemed to echo and ratify the solemn 
mandate. ' And some said that it thundered ; and 
others that an angel spake to him.' Probably both 
were heard ; the one more' clearly by some, the other 
more distinctly by others. That there was a voice, our 
Saviour implied; and he received it as a voice de- 
claring the necessity and certainty of his sufferings. 



184 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Now, according to our measure and our circum- 
stances, the same communication is made to us. We 
are sent into this world to suffer. For this cause 
came we here. Not to sport along the path of life, 
not to bask in the sun of perpetual prosperity, not to 
repose all our life long beneath shady bowers of ease, 
were we sent here ; but to toil, to struggle, to fight, 
with difficulty, disaster, pain, and sorrow, and at last 
to die. And if to die, and not all to die together, then 
some must be left to mourn for others, and there must 
be that bitterest of all the common sorrows of life — 
bereavement. 

All this we know full well, indeed, and it need not 
be dwelt upon ; but do we make the right inference ? 
Do we settle it with ourselves — do we say to ourselves 
that trial, trouble, affliction, must come ? — that they 
are a part of our lot, of our life, of our discipline, of 
our well-being ? — that they are just as certainly to 
come, and should be just as much looked for, as suc- 
cess, prosperity, joy, and blessing? Do we say when 
trouble comes, " thou art no surprise ; thou art no 
stranger to our thoughts." Is one often found to say, 
when death enters his dwelling, " I knew it ; 1 knew 
all along, that thou wouldst come ; I knew that thou 
couldst not pass us by always. Thou art come — thou 
art here! — -I am dying; or, my child is dying; I do 
not wonder at it; I never thought, as some say, that 
thou could^st not die, poor child ! fair creature by my 
side ! or, frail body of my own ! — I never thought to 
live always ; I would not live always ; I know that we 
came here to die ; 1 know that we came into this world 
to pass out of it ; it is the course of nature ; it is all 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 185 

right ; it is all well ; it is a part of the great procession 
of being; and over all, reigns the infinite wisdom." 
How few reason in this way, either with death, or with 
any kind of trouble ! The wisdom of society thus 
far, seems to consist, with many, in building up some 
barrier of fancied security, commonly a golden one, 
against trouble. If it were built of temperance and 
health and calm virtue, it would avail more ; but the 
common and coarse material is riches. And he who 
dwells therein for a while undisturbed, feels, when 
some disaster breaks in, as if his were the strangest lot 
beneath the sun. He felt, in his secure days, as if 
calamities, like wild beasts, were shut out ; and is as 
much astonished as if a lion had broke into his guarded 
dwelling. Or if many ills have fallen to any one's 
lot, society says, " it seems hard that he should suffer 
any more ; " — as if suffering were nothing but an evif, 
and as if humanity had brought immunities against that 
evil. But no, saith the wisdom of Providence ; the 
most suffering man shall suffer more and more ; that is, 
he shall suffer again and again ; if not in one way, yet 
in another; it is a part of his lot; ^^ for this cause 
came he into the world." But on the contrary, the 
prayer of the world, I repeat, is that prayer rejected 
by our Saviour : *' Save me from this hour ; save me 
from pain and sickness ; save me from losses and be- 
reavements." it does not indeed say — *^ save me from 
death;" and why not? Because death, sooner or 
later, is certain. But is not trouble in some form just 
as certain } No man prays that he may be carried up 
to heaven, in the chariot of Elijah. Why then should 
he pray or desire to be carried through this world in 



186 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

perfect security from the afflictions and sorrows of 
life. 

Not for easy security from them, but for noble con- 
flict with them, — for this very cause came he to meet 
the ever-recurring hours of trial and suffering. This 
was the strong hold of our Saviour's submission and 
calmness; and now I ask, can it not be ours? Can 
we do nothing — can we obtain nothing, approaching 
to that state of mind in him ? 

One great reason why we do not attain to it, is, that 
we do not attain this calm and settled expectation of 
trials, of which I have been speaking- If we had 
lived in a pre-existent state, and had th6re been told that 
we were to be sent into this world for a brief season, 
here to accomplish a great work, and to accomplish it 
in part by suffering.; if we had been distinctly told 
what the trials were, — disease, pain, disappointments, 
losses, bereavements — should we not then have met 
them with a different feeling ? Why can we not raise 
our minds to something of that feeling now ? Are we 
not, in fact, sent into the world with this message ? Is 
it not uttered in our ears, from every thing around us ? 
Why can we not educate our children to something of 
this calm and reasonable expectation ? — not, indeed, 
by specific and formal teaching, nor do they need it ; 
all events are teaching them ; but by our own manner 
of receiving affliction, and by our manner of hearing 
tidings of evil. We are, almost every day, hearing 
such things. The death of a friend, or of an acquaint- 
ance, or of a lovely child fallen beneath some sudden 
blow ; the loss of property or of place ; aberration of 
mind, or perhaps the worse aberration of virtue ; these 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 187 

things, some or other of them, come to our knowledge 
almost daily. And, instead of receiving such tidings 
with surprise, with amazement in our countenance, 
with a gesture of horror, with an agonized brow and 
eye ; cannot our manner be calm, though saddened 
with the passing emotion ? Can it not say — can it 
not say to our children — '^ So is this world made up 
— so is life mingled and blended of apparent good and 
ill, yet all to be good in the end ? " Can we not hear 
of the blow, as if we knew it was to fall somewhere ? 
Cannot our demeanor say — " For this cause we and 
all men came into the world — so to suffer trials, and 
to hear of one another's trials ; and all the jars of the 
world belong to the harmonies of infinite wisdom ? " 
That which artists have attempted to depict in the 
countenance of our Saviour, seems to me, thus far, a 
revelation of truth ; calmness, with patience, with pity ; 
divinity, touched with a sadness — touched with human 
afflictions ; manhood, stricken, but full of trust. 

I have often thought, that almost anything firmly 
believed, would help us more than, our halPway con- 
viction of truth. The doctrine of a fate — what an 
astonishing support does it give to its adherents ? 
The Mussulman sees the pestilence approaching. It 
is sweeping down thousands in its path; but he is 
totally unmoved; he says — *'If I am to die by this 
visitation, I am to die ; it is in vain that I try to resist 
or escape ; what can I do against the eternal decree ? 
In the city or the plains, in valley or mountain, it will 
find me ; here, then, or elsewhere, it is the same. 
The wing of Azrael, the death-angel, will touch me, 
or it will pass over me ; the will of God be done ! " — 



188 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

and he walks amidst the plague as unconcerned, as 
you walk on the breezy hill-side in a summer's day. 

And there is something true in the doctrine of fate. 
That is surely coming, which will sweep down this 
whole living generation. In a few years, you and I, 
and our children and friends, and the whole breathing 
world, will have passed through this form of being and 
have disappeared for ever ; and not under one form of 
instantaneous change, but by varied disease and dis- 
aster ; and not all together, but one by one ; the youth, 
the maiden, the mother, the child, the strong man, the 
frail and aged form — one by one. Great Power, that 
art above us, Thou hast made it so ! 

But not as a dark fate shall it come to us — not as if 
it came from out of the blind elements; — but from 
the infinite Light and Life and Love — from infinite 
depths of Goodness, of which the bright, unfolding 
heavens are but the image. That which hath sent us 
here to suffer, to sorrow, and to die, is not a blind 
Fate, or a blinder Chance, but a Will and a Wisdom 
intelligent and infinitely kind. 

Be this our repose. God's will be done. Let us 
say it, not in helpless submission, but in cheerful trust, 
in filial acquiescence. Let us submit, not because we 
cannot help it, but because we would not. If the Mus- 
sulman can say ** the will of Fate be done ! " can we 
not say *' the will of God be done ! " 

This was the strong word, which Christ uttered in 
contemplating those sufferings which lay before him. 
He felt the lowering shadow as he prayed in the shades 
of Gethsemane. Thrice he kneeled down and prayed 
there, using the same words. How touching that reit- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 189 

eration — that carelessness of the soul about words 
amidst dread realities — that concentration of the soul 
upon those utterances so few and simple, hanging upon 
them as if the broken spirit could desire no more — as 
if imagination were dead, and nothing lived but bitter 
and helpless agony — " O my Father, if it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, 
but as Thou wilt." 

'* As Thou wilt ! " That must ever be the prayer 
of our extremity, of our bereavement, of all heart- 
breaking desolation ; — "Not as I will, but as Thou 
wilt!" 



190 AN OFFERING OF SYBIPATHY 



THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 

Even when our faith in immortality is not formally 
renounced, it may droop into a sickly inefficiency, or 
shrivel into a dry, traditionary dogma. How many 
painful evidences present themselves, that much of 
the popular belief in the Blessedness to come, lingers 
in this halting, feeble mood ! To exercise any power, 
whether as a consolation for sorrow, or as a stimulus 
to righteousness, the faith in heaven needs to be a 
living reality, permeating the whole soul with its celes 
tial light. How it falls short of being the ardent, 
exultant, all-conquering force within us which it ought 
to be ! And death is one of God's appointed ministers 
to bring out the prophetic proofs and signals of the 
Great Hereafter, like stars in a clear night sky. We 
are too much overcome by the physical humiliations 
of dying, and the gloomy habiliments of our funeral 
customs. The emaciated frame, the sunk cheek, the 
pallid lips, the shut eyes, the sound of earth dropping 
damply on a coffin, the pall, the hearse, the absence 
of the familiar form, — all these are too much for 
that refined and spiritual eye that sees only what is 
within the veil. Faith itself faints, and falls back, 
and gives no sign, under these tangible tokens of 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 191 

decay. We repeat the error of the women at the 
► sepulchre. We are afraid. We bow down our faces 
to the earth. We will not believe what the Master 
said, " Whosoever believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live.'' Simply because we cannot 
look into Heaven with eyes of flesh, we are only half 
persuaded it is a fact ; forgetting that if we could so 
look into it, it would be Heaven no longer ; and for- 
getting also, that the very realities we do most believe 
in, and cling to, are things we have never so seen, 
nor can see. And so we stay, sobbing, sighing, weep- 
ing, like mourners that have no hope, about the dust, 
wasting tears and breath, like the women's spices, on 
the air, longing to feel once more the material touch, 
while the departed, like the Redeemer who brought 
their immortality to light, are not here, but risen. 

There is a distinct hindrance to our spiritual pro- 
gress, interposed by this faithless regarding of those 
really living on, as if they were utterly perished. It 
cuts off the vital influences which are meant to be con- 
tinually playing over from the disembodied sphere 
into our own. Are there not some families that feel 
the daily tone of their life to be lifted a little, and 
purified, by having some portion of their daily con- 
versation directed to that higher world, where a van- 
ished member of the divided circle has gone to dwell ? 
Have we not seen children that seemed to be learning 
to speak the alphabet of the heavenly knowledge, by 
talking delightedly to one another of the little brother, 
or sister, that they no more doubt lives on, than that 
they live here, — only wondering where, and how, and 
when, they shall be together once more ? One of 



192 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

the affecting promises with which Jesus comforted his 
sorrowing disciples, when he told them he must " go 
away," was this, — "And I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me." In such humble measure as 
is possible for his mortal followers, the same law 
holds, between the living and the dead of them. 
They that are lifted up draw the survivors, first 
spiritually, by the affections, and thus afterwards lite- 
rally, through a quickened holiness, up into the same 
abodes. All over Christendom, had we only the 
vision to see it, wherever death is suffered to be an 
apostle of faith, and is not made a mere spectre of 
alarm, these blessed attractions are binding earth to 
heaven, — gently lifting, lifting, lifting for evermore 
the spirits of those yet in the body, towards the 
" spirits of the just made perfect." Who can num- 
ber, or weigh, the forces of these pure attractions, 
falling so silently on us, elevating character so sub- 
limely ? Who can tell what power they wield to 
shame vice, to check depravity, to stop the tempted 
feet, to encourage the hesitating prayer for pardon ? 
Are there not some shrewd and eager men over 
whose busy and enterprising lives, — though their 
faces conceal the sacred secret, — there is bound the 
unceasing and mighty constraint of some saintly soul 
ascended to God's right hand ? Are there not some 
women, anxious and troubled, as the least wise one 
of the sisters of Bethany was, who would lose their 
hold on the Saviour's hand, in the confusion of house- 
hold care, or the bewildering passions of society, but 
for some pleading image of a child whom that Saviour 
has taken into his arms } We should remember it is 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 193 

through Christ that we have hope for the beloved ones 
that have died, and we should not let our attachments 
towards them transcend our love for Him, nor obscure 
o8r perception of His glory. But we must also thank 
God, if he lets those who have been brethren, com- 
panions, or children, in these relations of our mor- 
tality, lead us on to Him who is " the resurrection and 
the life,*' and, by that new and living Way, to Himself. 
For, in the Redeemer, there is but one redeemed 
family, on earth and in Heaven. 



13 



194 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



"SHE IS NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPETH!'» 

She is not dead, but sleepeth ; 

Why in your hearts this strife ? 
He who hath kept still keepeth 

The never-dying life. 

And though that form must moulder 

And mix again with earth, 
In faith ye may behold her 

In glory going forth. 

For what to us seems dying 

Is but a second birth, 
A spirit upward flying 

From the broken shell of earth. 

We are the dead, the buried, 

We who do yet survive. 
In sin and sense interred ; — 

The dead — they are alive ! 

Freed from the earthly prison. 

They seek another sphere ; 
They are not dead, but risen : 

And God is with them there. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 195 



WHERE ARE THE DEAD? 
Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? 

Where are the dead ? This question, asked thou- 
sands of years ago^ remains unanswered still. Since 
Job 3pake, we have on other points learned much ; 
but on this, we have learned but little. Christianity 
has not solved this mystery. It tells us that there is 
another life ; and that is almost all. 

On some accounts this silence is very surprising. 
How many have said to themselves, in effect : *' O 
that I knew something, at least, about the future state ! 
Why is it that when we need so much for restraint, 
support, comfort, a clearer revelation, it is denied ? '' 
The difficulties involved in these inquiries have been 
in part met, and more or less successfully, by attempts 
to point out some of the reasons why such a revelation 
would not be expedient; and also, by various specu- 
lations indulged by wise and good men, in respect to 
the nature of the employments, enjoyments, and modes 
of existence of the life beyond this. 

Still, it may be doubted, whether any of these con- 
siderations are so well fitted to the end proposed, as is 
this plainer and simpler truth, capable of being ex- 



196 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

pressed in very few words, namely : that wherever the 
departed are, they are where God is. The truth that, 
wherever be the place of their sojourn, they are under 
the rule and providence of our heavenly Father, they 
cannot have gone away from his spirit, they have not 
flown from his presence, is one full of suggestion and 
comfort. 

Christian mother ! your little child is where God is. 
The place you cannot know. Possibly your child 
knows as little on this point as you do. His infant 
faculties undeveloped, unobservant, as they were here, 
— enjoying passively, — all his wants cared for, — 
entering on that life as he did on this, an infant, — he 
is conscious, in all probability, of no change in out- 
ward circumstances. The wonders around do not 
startle him or even arouse his curiosity, more than did 
the novel, the unaccustomed, the mysterious, arrest his 
attention when he was an infant here. Perhaps not 
more than in this life, does he recognize the faces and 
forms of those to whose gentle charge he is committed. 
Perhaps, ever though he has carried with him the 
child's power of ready adaptation to what is new and 
strange — that wondrous faculty which childhood has, 
of looking upon what is novel and even amazing to 
older persons, as if it were a matter of course and by 
no means surprising, — it will still be some time before 
the outward world in which he now is a dweller, will 
reveal itself to him ; and that, too, gradually. 

Why should all this seem entirely fanciful, when we 
consider that when he came to this world — this world, 
so full of marvel and mystery, and where God is, — 
he passed through similar experiences ? Why should 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 197 

he wake up in the other life, feeling lonely, and help- 
less, and awe-struck ? Why should his father's house 
there^ hold none who will love him ? Is not the truth, 
God is there as here, a warrant that all this cannot 
be ? 

There is another class of bereaved sufferers, to 
whom the simple thought that the dead are where God 
is, is full of comfort ; and that even though anxieties 
of a darker character than those just referred to, dis- 
turb their hearts. 

'* O that I knew where he is, of whom (having 
passed childhood) I can not say he was as fitted for 
heaven, as is the little child — of whom I can not say 
he was as religious, as I wish he had been ! I be- 
lieve in the divine paternity ; but this does not exclude 
the idea of future retribution. 1 must believe in that, 
even though I must sadly say he was not all that I 
could wish." 

I would not say a word to weaken the truth, that 
there is a retribution which reaches beyond the grave. 
Still, we are not required to believe that the soul that 
suffers it, dwells in a region where the providence of 
God does not reach. 

If so, why should one thus afflicted, hesitate in 
speaking thus : Where the dead are who have not 
lived as God's children should, I know not. But 
wherever they are, I believe they are suffering the 
mournful consequences of disobedience to the laws of 
God and of their being; God's love, not there niore 
than here, standing between wrong acts, and their 
legitimate, inevitable consequences. 

I believe that he whom I loved so well, is subject to 



198 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

this law. Where he is, I know not ; but wherever he 
is, just so far as he was unfitted for a high spiritual 
state of existence, just so far is he enduring regret, 
shame, loss. He suffers according to his defects, as 
he enjoys proportionally to the good that was in his 
character; God seeing that as well as the bad, clearer 
than I. Still, while I look that fact clearly in the face, 
let nne not turn away from a great hope, to say the 
least ; let me trust that punishment, which was in this 
life disciplinary, and had a moral aim in view, has not 
undergone in its essential principles as entire and 
mournful a change, as has that poor body through one 
single event, which we call death. What is there in 
the death of a man, that changes the character of the 
Deity ? If when he stood on this side of the line be- 
tween two worlds, God was very merciful to my friend, 
what was there in the stepping over that line, which 
was adapted to make God merciless ? Why may I 
not rather believe, that the great Compassion, as well 
as the great law of retribution, still remains; that he 
whom 1 have loved will suffer, if he must need suffer, 
under the rule of that same being who sent in this life 
retribution, but never retribution disproportioned to 
desert, never without a beneficent end ; and who never 
in his sternness, — and God is no weakly indulgent 
parent, too kind to punish, when it is for their good, his 
children, — ceased to be the Father? Why should I 
not trust him under the operation of the great laws of 
God's government, even though I knew they must 
always bear hard on offence and short coming, where- 
ever men are ? Perhaps he sees now only more 
clearly, what he saw sometimes when he was in the 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 199 

flesh, how merciful is their intent even when they 
cause the most suflering. Perhaps the lesson that they 
failed to teach, he is learning now, in suffering ; 
but still he is learning it, and so the first step is taken in 
the way towards God. But be this as it may. Why 
should not I trust him under the same rule there to 
which I trusted him here ? Why should I fear to trust 
his well-being in any world where God dwells ? Why 
may I not say, not despairingly, even when I remember 
his fault, his sin, — what he endures, I know not. 
Where he is, I know not. But one thing I do know, 
he is where God is. 



200 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



BLOSSOMS FROM THE GRAVE OF CHILDHOOD. 

Many a blossom of childish existence is destined 
never to bear fruit in this world ; and those which 
exhibit the fullest pronnise are precisely those which 
are most apt to drop untimely from the tree of life. 
Who has not whnessed the blighting of such hopes? 
Who has not seen some fair young creature of rare 
endowments and glorious beauty, crushed into dust by 
swift disease, and swept like a dream from the earth ? 

Does it seem mysterious that childhood should per- 
ish without refunding to loving and anxious parents 
the care and labor expended upon it, and that natures, 
apparently best fitted by intellectual and moral endow- 
ments to bless the world on which they have beamed 
for an hour, should be the surest and earliest prey to 
mortality ? Yet remember that the qualities best fitted 
to shed lustre on human life, are also the best adapted 
to adorn and bless a higher sphere. The soul which 
discovers such wealth and beauty as makes us regret 
its departure, carries beauty and paradise wherever it 
goes ; and wherever, in the many-mansioned house of 
the Father it may find a home, it will glorify that 
home with its gifts, and make it glad and lustrous 
with celestial radiance. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 201 

The placing of every soul in this universe, is deter- 
mined by the same unerring Wisdom which adjusts 
the position of every star, and arranges the visible 
creation in harmonious order; and if human affection, 
bereft of its dearest, could look with spiritual eyes, it 
would never wish the soul that has soared from its 
sight, to be otherwise placed than it is. . . . 

Love stands at the threshold of this 

world to welcome the new-born, and interpret for him 
the lesson of life. Doubt not that Love waits also at 
the entrance of the world to come, and welcomes 
every child that is cast upon its shores 

The shortest life has its meaning and its use. No- 
thing comes into being without a purpose, and nothing 
dies until its purpose is fulfilled. There are no un- 
timely deaths. Every dissolution of earthly ties is 
twined with beautiful precision in relation to ends that 
are yet to be revealed in the scheme of God. What 
signifies a few years more or less of earth, in the 
great account of the spirit's life ? Why grieve at the 
river's shortened course, when the boundless ocean 
remains for all ? Consider this, and death, whenever 
it comes, and to whatsoever dear one in the circle of 
your loves, will justify itself as the will and wisdom of 
the All-knowing, All-embracing ; and however it may 
try your heart with momentary bitterness, will be seen 
and acknowledged as the way of grace and of bless- 
ing to those that go and to those that remain. 



202 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



OUR RELATION TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 



It is the order of Providence, that the longer we 
live, the longer and closer shall be our relation with 
the unseen world — the greater shall be the company 
of those who have gone from us after leaving their 
mark on our minds, and entrusting their memories to 
our keeping. Poor, indeed, the lot and wretched the 
spirit of him who counts friends and benefactors only 
among the living. 

They that have gone from us in peace care for us, 
and we ought to care for them. They care for us 
surely, since Christ cared for his friends, and they that 
are near him must be like him. Nay, is it not one of 
the characteristics of a perfected mind to care ever- 
more even for scenes and persons connected with its 
own early development on earth ? A wise man thinks 
more earnestly and tenderly of his own early home — 
the fields of his sports — the companions of his stu- 
dies — the guardians and counsellors of his youth, 
than he did when he was a child. The more we go 
onward, the more fondly we look backward, the more 
we interpret the end from the beginning, so that the 
analogies drawn from human feeling here, would seem 
to teach us that there is no Lethe rolling its tide of ob- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 203 

livion between us and the better land, to shut out the 
living from the memory and regard of the departed. 

But God is our teacher, and in Christ he has opened 
a school for the heart which can reach depths far 
beyond the plummet of human wisdom. Many a 
rough nature there learns a lesson of faith and love, 
which it is too proud to acknowledge before men. 
God opens to our heart thus a high and holy sphere of 
contemplation to which few are wholly indifferent. 
As we contemplate that goodly company, so vast, so 
imposing, and yet, in some aspects, so winning to each 
one of us, a feeling rises, half of earthly friendship, 
half of heavenly communion, mingling all that has 
been purest in memory with all that is brightest in 
hope, so that we cannot with certainty say as we linger, 
whether the power that attracts is of men .or of God, 
until our fidelity combines both elements into one, 
and by a sacred humanity both loves are united. 

The affections are thus occupied, and so too are 
they quickened. Looking thus upward, we feel the 
power of all worthy examples. The life that once 
animated them seems still to enforce them, and the 
annals of virtue and devotion live for us anew, preach- 
ers of fortitude and comforters of sorrow. The source 
of that power which comes from communing with the 
faithful in the unseen world we need not be too anx- 
ious to analyze. How the departed act upon us, we 
may not presume to declare with absolute certainty, 
until we can say with the same certainty how the 
living act upon us ; sometimes to lead us to God, and 
sometimes to entice us to sin. Who of us can refuse 
to recognize the existence of a power above the ken 



204 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

of a narrow, sensual philosophy, in the influence that 
comes to him from those whom he no more sees in the 
world ? Who of us has not found in some sacred re- 
membrance, in the cherished image of some benefac- 
tor, the more than speaking presence of some departed 
friend, a ministry to his soul passing far the range of 
the material understanding ? God works upon us more 
and more by the ministry of the departed. In our 
homes they meet us in how many spheres ; in the 
sanctuary, too, how often they speak to us. We hear 
their voices in the hymn of the gospel, in the prayer 
and the meditation of the church and closet. We use 
the wisdom and repeat the love of gifted spirits, no 
longer with us in the body. The ministration is the 
more effectual as we connect what they have done in 
the world with what they are above the world. 

We do not now regard ourselves as occupying the 
region of dreary sentiment or idle musing. Active 
force comes from this train of meditation — power to 
cheer and animate the will, as well as to exalt the 
views and quicken the affections. To do well the 
various works of life, we need to know well the one 
great work of life. Who shall teach us this, if not 
they who have done their work faithfully, and gone to 
their rest ? As we seek them, they come near to us ; 
their words live for us, and their deeds act for us. 
The world's time-servers will not then meet our wants. 
They may show us how to look upon the expedients 
of the passing hour, but they know nothing of the 
great and solemn interest of life. In transient disap- 
pointments we need associations that lead us to look 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 205 

above things transient to things eternal ; in present 
prosperity we require counsellors, from whose minds 
beams the brightness of the eternal light. In our pain 
and sickness there comes to us great strength from the 
assurance that they bore all this and far more. When 
we are on the verge of that gulf which to the earthly 
senses, is darkness or void, shoreless, cheerless, dread- 
ful, when things mortal are fading away, rapidly away, 
and all the friendly hands stretched out to smooth our 
dying pillow, are of no avail — then — O then — do we 
not need the solace of that great company who can 
make us feel that we are no longer alone — not alone 
— but among brethren — brethren more in number and 
deeper in experience of God and heaven than any that 
we leave behind ; of Him, the chief of that company 
who went to prepare a place for his own, that they might 
be with him and the Father ? Read soberly the annals 
of the true heroes of the earth, and then acknow- 
ledge, as you must, that man is never so strong in 
life or in death, as when cheered and strengthened 
by faith in unseen power and communion with invisi- 
ble minds. Our Saviour meets this great want in his 
promise to be with his own to the end of the world. 
The promise is fulfilled in all ages that respect his gos- 
pel and bring the Comforter near. To some of us it 
may be a mother's spirit that presents this benediction, 
and makes Christ's promise live in our experience. 
How many of us can say with the poet : — 

Another hand is beckoning us. 

Another call is given ; 
And glows once more with angel steps, 

The path that leads to heaven. 



206 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

0, half we deem she needed not 
The changing of her sphere, 

To give to heaven a shining one, 
Who walked an angel here. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 207 



EXTRACT. 



*' I will not mock thee with the poor world's common 
And heartless phrase ; 

Yet would I say, what thy own heart approveth, — 

Our Father's will, 
Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth, 

Is mercy still. 
Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel 

Hath evil wrought ; 
Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel, — 

The good die not ! 
God calls our loved ones ; but we lose not wholly 

What He hath given ; 
They live on Earth, in thought and deed, as truly 

As in His Heaven. 
And she is with thee ; in thy path of trial 

She walketh yet, — 
Still with the baptism of thy self-denial 

Her locks are wet ! " 



208 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



BLESSEDNESS OF A CHILD-LIKE FAITH 

How true it is, that if we would enter into and com- 
prehend spiritual truths, we must " become as little 
children." We must irust in the afB/mations of our 

spiritual nature, and not allow the questionings of the 

* 

mere understanding to disturb the faith whose basis is 
in the deeper experience of the soul. As I have sat 
by the sick bed of a child, and heard her speaking 
with simple but perfect assurance of the heaven and 
the God to whom she was going, of Jesus, and the 
brothers and sisters gone before, who were waiting to 
receive her spirit, I could not but feel how natural to 
the human soul were these truths of the spiritual life. 
I could not but feel my faith strengthened in immor- 
tality. The soul that trusts its own simple inmost 
feeling knows that it shall not die;— that Life, not 
Death, is its natural heritage. 

How precious are these words of child-like faith from 
children's lips ! We do not wonder when we see those 
drawing near, without dread, to the close of an earthly 
life, whose ties have been one after another broken ; 
or when the worn sufferer, after years of pain, even 
longs for the hour which lays to rest the racked body. 
But when the young child, to whom life has been a 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 209 

summer morning of gladness overflowing with the 
sunlight and fulness of life ; when such an one, after 
prayers that he might be spared to bless with his love 
and care those who had so loved to care for him, yet 
yields his will unmurmuring to his Father's will, and 
meets death without a fear, and speaks with sweet 
calmness of the grave and the life beyond ; then, we 
do not wonder, indeed, but we feel as we never felt 
before, that the spiritual world is the heart's home to 
the pure in heart. We feel how real and how near 
God's heaven, which is God's Presence, is. Such 
precious words, coming from one who had been 
wont to look to us for strength, and who at such an 
hour might seem to need it most from us, make us 
feel that it is we that receive, as at such an hour we 
need, the strength. They rebuke and remove our 
want of trust, our fears, and shrinking. And while 
they endear the dying one more than ever to our 
hearts, they do by the very intensity they give to our 
affections, spiritualize those affections, and make us 
sure that they are immortal. We know that over such 
a bond death has no power, and that we are not to be 
separated from the spirit we so love. Dark and heavy 
may the veil of Death have hung before us, as the 
young child, unclasping its hand from ours, passes 
alone within its folds and is lost from our sight. But 
that veil hangs before the Holy of Holies, and within 
is God's presence. And as our straining eyes gaze 
through their tears, a little hand parts the veil and 
gives us a vision of the heavenly world ; and we see 
the angel child before the face of its Heavenly Father, 
ready for its ministry to be a messenger between him 
14 



210 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

and our human hearts. So the lost for a moment, is 
found forever, and the hunger of our heart is stilled. 
Henceforth a spiritual presence is near us, in all the 
familiar places which were once bright with the bodily 
presence. We need not go to the grave to weep. In 
each daily haunt, each room of the house, 

" And every inch of garden ground 
Paced by those blessed feet around,'* 

we meet the invisible but most real presence, and are 
no more alone. We have not to wait to go to him, for 
he has come to us. 



I 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 211 



FORGOTTEN ! 

There is nothing, no, nothing innocent or good, that 
dies and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith or 
none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, 
will live again in the better thoughts of those who 
loved it, and play its part through them in the re- 
deeming actions of the world, though its body be 
burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There 
is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven, but does 
its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here. 
Forgotten ! Oh, if the good deeds of human creatures 
could be traced to their source, how beautiful would 
even Death appear; for how much charity, mercy, 
and purified affection, would be seen to have their 
growth in dusty graves! 

• ••••••. 

She was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay 
at rest. 

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so 
free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She 
seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and 
waiting for the breath of life ; not one who had lived 
and suffered death. 



212 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Where were the traces of her early cares, her 

sufferings, and fatigues ? All gone Sorrow 

was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happi- 
ness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and 
profound repose. 

• ••••••• 

It is not in this world that Heaven's justice ends. 
Think what it is, compared with the world to which her 
young spirit has winged its early flight, and say, if one 
deliberate wish expressed in solemn tears above this 
bed could call her back to life, which of us would 

utter it? 

• ••••••• 

Oh ! It is hard to take to heart the lesson that such 
deaths will teach; but let no man reject it, for it is 
one that all must learn, and is a mighty universal 
Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and 
young, for every fragile form from which he lets the 
panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise in shapes of 
mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless 
it with their light. Of every tear that sorrowing 
mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, 
some gentle nature comes. In the Destroyer's steps 
there spring up bright creations that defy his power; 
and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 213 



LETTER OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



Extract from Sir William Temple's letter to Lady Essex, reproving her ex- 
cessive grief for the loss of her daughter. 



"Yet after all, madam, I think your loss so great, 
and some measure of your grief so deserved, that 
would all your passionate complaints, all the anguish 
of your heart, do any thing to retrieve it ; could tears 
water the lovely plant, so as to make it grow again 
after once it is cut down ; would sighs furnish new 
breath, or could it draw life and spirits from the 
wasting of yours, I am sure your friends would be so 
far from accusing your passion, that they would en- 
courage it as much and share it as deep as they could. 
But, alas ! the eternal laws of the creation extinguish 
all such hopes, forbid all such designs. Nature gives 
us many children and friends to take them away, but 
takes none away to give them us again. And this 
makes the excesses of grief to have been so universally 
condemned as a thing unnatural, because so much in 
vain ; whereas nature, they say, does nothing in vain ; 
as a thing so unreasonable, because so contrary to our 
own designs ; for we all design to be well, and at ease, 
and by grief we make ourselves ill of imaginary 
wounds, and raise ourselves troubles most properly 



214 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

out of the dust, whilst our ravings and complaints are 
but like arrows shot up into the air at no mark, and so 
to no purpose, but only to fall back upon our heads, 
and destroy ourselves, instead of recovering or re- 
venging our friends. 

All the precepts of Christianity agree to teach and 
command us to moderate our passions, to temper our 
affections towards all things below ; to be thankful for 
the possession, and patient under the loss, whenever 
He, that gave it, shall see fit to take away. Your 
extreme fondness was, perhaps, as displeasing to God 
before, as now your extreme affliction ; and your loss 
may have been a punishment for your fsiults in the 
manner of enjoying what you had. Submission is the 
only way of reasoning between a creature and its 
Maker; and contentment in His will is the greatest 
duty we can pretend to, and the best remedy we can 
apply to all our misfortunes.*' 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 215 



A CHRISTIAN MOTHER ON THE DEATH OF A 
DARLING CHILD. 



There was the parting sigh; 

With that the spirit fled. 
And winged its flight on high, 
And left the body dead. 
No prayers, no tears, its flight could stay ; 
'T was Jesus called the soul away. 

Oh, how shall I complain 

Of him who rules above; 
Who sends no needless pain ; 
Who always smites in love; 
Who looks in tend'rest pity down, 
E 'en when he seems to wear a frown ? 

The eye of Jesus wept, 
It dropt a holy tear, 
When Mary's brother ** slept," 
A friend to Jesus dear. 
Delightful thought ! that blessed eye. 
Still beams with kindness in the sky. 

I know my babe is blest, 

Her bliss by Jesus given ; 
She's early gone to rest. 

She's found an early heaven; 
The sigh that closed her eyes on earth, 
Was signal of her happier birth. 



216 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

But oh, my spirits fail, 

I feel a pang untold — 
Those ruby 1 ips so pale ! 

That blushing cheek so cold ! 
And dim those eyes of *' dewy light," 
That smiled and glanced so sweetly bright. 

To lay that darling form, 
So lovely e'en in death. 
Food for corruption's worm. 
The mould'ring earth beneath ! 
Oh, worse to me than twice to part ; 
Than second death-stroke to my heart ! 

As summer-flower she grew 

Expanding to the morn, 
All gemm'd with sparkling dew, 
A flower without a thorn, 
A mother's sweet and lovely flower. 
Sweeter and lovelier every hour. 

But ah ! my morning bloom 

Scarce felt the warming ray ; 
An unexpected gloom 
Obscured the rising day ; 
A dreary, cold, and with'ring blast, 
Xow on the ground its beauties cast. 

Its glist'ning leaves are shed, 

That spread so fresh and fair ; 
The balmy fragrance fled. 
That scented all the air ; 
And lowly laid its lifeless form, 
The gentle victim of the storm. 

But why in anguish weep ? 

Hope beams upon my view, 
*T is but a winter's sleep. 
My flowers shall spring anew; 
Each darling flower in earth that sleeps, 
O'er which fond mem'ry hangs and weeps 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 217 

All to new life shall rise, 

In heavenly beauty bright, 
Shall charm my rayished eyes. 
In tints of rainbow light j 
Shall bloom unfading in the skies. 
And drink the dews of Paradise ! 

Oh, this is blest relief ! 

My fainting heart it cheers ; 
It cools my burning grief, 
And sweetens all my tears ; 
These eyes shall see my darling then. 
Nor shed a parting tear again. 

And while my bleeding heart 
Laments for comforts gone, 
I only mourn a part, — 
I am not left alone ; 
Though nipt some buds of opening joy, 
How many still my thanks employ ! 

And thou ! my second heart. 

Loved partner of my grief. 

Heaven bids not thee depart. 

Of earthly joys the chief ; ' 

A favored wife and mother still, 

Let grateful praise my bosom fill ! 



218 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



IS IT WELL WITH THE CHILD? 
Is it well with the child ? And she answered, It is well. 

That it is well with children when they die, we 
know. We will then inquire what are the designs of 
Providence in calling children away from their parents' 
arms. 

I think, that you cannot possibly imagine more than 
two reasons why children are thus called away. The 
first is, to save them from the evils of the world. Far 
be it from me to represent this life as a vale of tears, 
or as a place where the miserable outnumber the 
happy. I know that it is not so, and that the great 
proportion of the earth's inhabitants want not the 
power but the disposition to be happy. Still, time and 
chance happen to them all ; and if you look upon 
those who started together in life, with high hopes and 
bounding steps, you find some who are soon bent down 
with suffering, while others keep on successfully to the 
last. You find some, who midway in life, are wasted with 
disease, which breaks off all the purposes of life and 
sinks them slowly and heavily to the grave. You find 
some, who, without any fault of their own, are thrown 
into a condition in life, in which they have every thing 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 219 

to endure, with no hope of any thing better in this 
world. You see the man with the crown of rejoicing 
taken from his head ; you see the aged moving alone, 
unsupported and uncared for to the tomb. Such 
destinies in life there are ; and such might have been 
the portion of the child who perished yesterday, to- 
day, or the one that should die to-morrow. If so, the 
parent should thank God, who hides it from the evil, 
even though He hides it in the grave. 

But these which I have named are not the worst 
evils of life. This is a world of sin. They who come 
forward to bear a part in it, meet a thousand various 
temptations ; and there are too many who yield to 
them and fall. The generous and high-minded youth 
sometimes becomes a cold, selfish and unfeeling man ; 
the man who used to look the world in the face, be- 
comes base and dishonorable, and either frowns in 
savage defiance, or looks down with shame. They who 
were loved for their kind hearts, become slaves to their 
vices, which make them a burden and sorrow to their 
friends ; and very often, those whom the world accuses 
of no vices, are yet entirely destitute of moral princi- 
ples and religious affections. If it might have been 
the fate of your child to sink into any one of these 
snares ; if there were the least danger of his becoming 
an alien from heaven and self-outcast from God, what 
parent would not rejoice to have his child taken to a 
better world before it becomes deeply stained with the 
corruption of this ? You should bless the hand that 
throws open the door of escape, even if it is the door 
of the grave. 



220 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

No parent feels as if her child could ever have 
become a slave to corruption, but God knows ; and if 
it is not to save them from the evils of life, that they 
are taken away, it must be for the second reason; — 
to place them in a condition more favorable to their 
improvement than this world affords. 

I fear that the future life is so imperfectly realized, 
that this consolation loses most of its power. Why 
will men persist in thinking of heaven as a place of 
unmeaning rest, of indolent happiness, where the soul 
finds nothing but still and deep repose ? They ought 
to reflect, that repose is not happiness to the mind, and 
that the enjoyment they dream of is rather stagnation 
than repose. It is a state wholly unsuited to the nature 
of man. They ought to think of heaven as a place 
where every power of every mind shall be steadily, 
successfully, and therefore happily exerted ; where 
every affection of every heart shall be deeply in- 
terested, and therefore fully blessed. What the em- 
ployment of that state will be, we know so far as this, 
it must be the employment of mind, in such researches 
as to give jhe highest happiness, in discovering the 
manifestations of the glory and goodness of God. 
To think of heaven as we do, affords no comfort, no 
attraction ; it is like the long yellow line of a desert, 
seen by mariners who are looking for green hills and 
valleys as they draw near the shore; when, would they 
imagine it as a place where all are active, interested 
and happy, they would feel that when their child is 
gone to that world, there are some there, who will 
watch the flower, as it unfolds the beauty of its pro- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 221 

mise, and spreads out to the Sun of Righteousness its 
leaves, from which the dew of youth will never dry. 

Think thus of heaven, and it will be something real 
and substantial to offer the mourning heart. It is 
evidently a region more favorable to the growth of the 
immortal nature than this world. For, though in this 
world there are trials and hardships, which serve to 
discipline some spirits, and in this way to form them 
for heaven, there are other spirits perhaps, which are 
comparatively pure, and do not need them ; which 
are gentle, and could not bear them ; which could 
not endure the rough climate of this world, but can 
grow and flourish divinely in the milder air of heaven. 
Such spirits, it is but reasonable to suppose, are trans- 
lated, because heaven is better for them than earth ; 
and God in his mercy places every soul in the state, 
whatever it may be, which is most favorable to its 
growth in excellence. In our Father's house there 
are many mansions ; and all are open to the innocent 
as well as the just. 

This accounts for the fact which has been so often 
observed, that many children of the brightest promise 
are removed from this world. A fact I have no 
doubt it is ; though parents naturally esteem their own 
children too highly, and the lost are often the most 
loved, without being the best; still, it has been re- 
marked from the earliest ages, that early death is 
given to the favorites of heaven. And why should it 
not be so ? If there is a better world, for which they 
are better fitted than for this, why should we wish to 
detain them here ? why should we lament when the 



222 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

heavenly spirit ascends to its honne in the skies? 
The parents should be ready to give up their child to 
a father, who has more right to its presence and 
affection than they; and, assured that "of such is the 
kingdom of heaven," they should feel, that the hour 
cannot be untimely, which numbers it with the cheru- 
bim and all the radiant spirits round the throned 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 223 



LETTER OF REV. DR. BALFOUR. 



A letter from Rev. Dr. Balfour, a clergyman of Glasgow, to his friends, after 
the death of his only son, who died while on a visit to their house.* 



" Glasgow, August, 1766. 

Sir: 
I BEG you will let me know particularly how you 
and Mrs. Dennison are. I can say with truth, that 
from the moment of receiving the severe shock, an 
anxiety about you all hath mixed itself with almost all 
tears and prayers on my account. If my intended 
visit is on any account, or in any way, disagreable, 
fully tell me, for nothing is more remote from my 
mind, than giving the least pain to any one of you. 

So far am I from looking with an evil eye at , 

as the cause of my distress, the loss of my dear boy 

* The Rev. Dr. Balfour, who lately deceased at Glasgow, was 
for many years one of the most eminent divines of the church 
of Scotland. The occasion of this excellent letter was the death 
of his only son, who was drowned during a visit to some friends 
in the country, while bathing in company with a son of their 
own, who escaped. The tenderness and generous considera- 
tion, expressed for his friends under such circumstances, seems 
to us scarcely less admirable than the truly Christian submis- 
sion, which it displays. 



224 



AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



appears to be attended with many alleviating circum- 
stances, which probably could not have been the case 
any where else. The time, the divinely appointed 
time, was come for his removal from the tender em- 
braces of a fond parent. And since this was the divine 
will, I dare not say unkind, or unjust, of his and my 
Father in heaven, I adore and bless his name for ena- 
bling me to acquiesce with perfect satisfaction in his 
sovereign w^ill. I knew this high and unsearchable 
will of God took effect amidst all that immediate atten- 
tion, which a parent's eye, a parent's hand, a parent's 
breast could have thought of for his safety. Instead, 
therefore, of one reflection, I now most sincerely give, 
and if able, will in person give, with my whole heart, 
the most grateful acknowledgments to you, and all 
about your house, for flying to the instant relief of my 
perishing child; that lady first. And the good God 
who frustrated all these kind and friendly endeavors, 
which I shall never forget, has taught me, and will 
teach you, '* he does all things well,'' " according to 
the counsel of his own will." I greatly feel for the 
deep distress it has brought upon you, and worthy 
Mrs. Dennison, because you participate so much in my 
sorrow. 

I wish now, my dear friend, to set before you some 
of the consolations, which have relieved my otherwise 
sorrowful spirit. The God, who has visited me with this 
sore calamity, has, I assure you, been to me a " God 
of all comfort." When afflictions abound, his conso- 
lations are made much more to abound. He hath 
comforted me by fixing my attention on his divine per- 
fections ; his glorious, gracious character, design, and 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 225 

relations. I see there can be no error, or rashness in 
any part of infinite wisdom ; nor crueUy, nor unkind- 
ness in the intention of Him, who is righteous, and 
good, and merciful. 

I hope that you, Mrs. Dennison, will not be afraid to 
meet me. I shall endeavor to comfgrt you with the con- 
solations, which are in Jesus Christ. They are strong, 
everlasting; and when the streams of worldly com- 
fort are dried up, whither should we go but to the com- 
forts of divine love and faith ? This is a fountain, 
which pours forth its gracious influence, adapted to all 
our situations. This dispensation is to teach us the 
vanity of this life, and the temporary nature of all 
earthly joy. What is this world, with all its riches, 
honors, pleasures and connections, without God for- 
ever ? What, with his blessed presence, can we want, 
that is good for us ? '* Though our house be not so 
with God, he hath made with us an everlasting cove- 
nant, ordered in all things, and sure.'' We may well 
add, " This is all our salvation and all our desire,'' and 
with the prophet Habakkuk, "Although the fig-tree 
should not blossom, yet we will rejoice in the God of 
our salvation." Oh, how divine is that religion, that 
presents such truths to the mind ; how solacing are its 
comforts ! Let us look forward to the bright morning 
of the resurrection, which will turn all our sorrow into 
joy. Then shall our companions in the faith and 
patience of Jesus Christ appear with him in glory. 
How wondrously changed their forms! No more cor- 
ruption ; no more tendency to disease or death ; no 
possibility of any future separation ; shining forth in all 
the perfections of unfading beauty, spotless purity, and 
15 



226 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

immortal honor. The unfolded mystery of redemp- 
tion, and the glory of their Saviour, will open, and 
show them such resplendent surveys of grace and 
greatness, as shall more than satisfy them with regard 
to past events. The most overwhelming and con- 
founding, will fill them with eternal admiration. I trust 
you will not be offended at the freedom and earnest- 
ness, with which a friend, more than ever concerned 
for your best interests, has written. 

Be assured, I sincerely wish for you health, pros- 
perity, and every good thing. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 227 



EXTRACT FROM A SERMON OF REV. DR. BARNES.^ 



Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, oh ye, my friends, for the hand of 
God hath touched me. 



" What happened to pious Job, in part, hath hap- 
pened to me. My first and only daughter is dead. 
As many of you had some acquaintance with her, 
and know that I have no daughter left to help me 
under the infirmities of age, I am sure of all the 
compassion I can reasonably expect. I have friends 
to comfort me in the hour of trouble. 

No inconsiderable part of my business through 
life has been to administer consolation to the afflicted. 
How well I have done it, I must leave, to others 
to determine. God is my witness, that in this part 
of my work I have been sincere ; and, generally 
speaking, my words have been well accepted. My 
visits have been agreeable to me, because they ap- 
peared to be so to others. The time is now come, 
when I stand in need of that consolation, I have 
given to others. My beloved people appear ready 
and disposed to mingle their tears with mine. I am 

* Dr. Barnes was a clergyman of considerable repute in Soitu- 
ate, Mass ; and the discourse from which this affecting passage 
is taken, was preached after the funeral of an only daughter. 



228 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

full in the belief that my daughter, so much beloved 
by me, lived beloved by others. I think she had 
not an enemy in the world. If she had, I know 
not the person, nor do I wish to know; and as she 
lived beloved, so I have reason to think she died 
lamented. What adds much to my support in my 
trouble, is the strong hope I have that she is gone 
to a better world. She was not unhappy in this, 
but she might be more happy in another: to that she 
is gone, and there I leave her ; I shall soon follow 
her. Could she have staid, to help me finish a long 
life that is fast declining, it would have been ex- 
ceedingly agreeable. But this is a favor which 
my God, for wise reasons, thought it best not to 
grant. 

My life is more solitary than it was. It is best 
that I should be weaned from the world, before I 
am called to leave it. God has taken the most 
effectual way to do it. I do not complain. I have 
friends left, and hope I always shall have. We 
will weep together. I am not childless ; I have a 
son to confort me, as good as I could wish. I leave 
my grand-children in good hands ; they are unknown 
to you, and perhaps always will be; let them have 
an interest in your prayers. To give a character of 
my beloved daughter belongs not to me. Her ac- 
quaintance want none ; her life speaks for itself ; 
let her works praise her ; and her husband and chil- 
dren rise up, as they will, and call her blessed. The 
will of God is done, and we will all say, Amen." 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 229 



SPEECH OF THE KEV. SAMUEL DANFORTH AT THE 
GRAVE OF THREE OF HIS CHILDREN.* 

'* My Friends : 
If any, that see my grief, should say unto me, as 
the Danites unto Micah, What aileth thee ? I thank 
God I cannot answer, as he did, They have taken 
away my gods. My heart was indeed somewhat set 
upon my children, especially the eldest ; but they 
were none of my gods, none of my portion ; my 
portion is whole and untouched unto this day. 

* The Rev. Samuel Danforth was one of the early ministers 
of Roxbury, and was for many years a colleague with the vener- 
able Eliot, justly celebrated among the worthies of New Eng- 
land, and as the *• Apostle of the Indians." The affliction, 
which called forth this touching address to his sympathizing 
parishionars, is thus mentioned by Cotton Mather in his ** Mag- 
nalia." 

*• In December, 1659, the (hitherto unknown) malady of croup 
invaded and removed many children. By opening of one of ihem 
the malady and remedy, though too late for very many, were 
discovered. Among those many that thereby expired, were the 
three children of the Rev. Mr. S. Danforth, the eldest of whom, 
being upwards of five years, was remarkably intelligent and 
pious. How the sorrowful father entertained this solemn provi- 
dence may be partly gathered from what he expressed unto such 
as came to attend his branches unto their graves." 



230 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

I trust the Lord hath done what he hath done, in 
wisdom and faithfulness and dear love ; and that in 
taking these pleasant things from me, he exercises and 
expresses as tender affection unto me, as I now express 
towards them, in mourning for the loss of them. My 
desire is, that none may be over much dismayed at 
what hath befallen us ; and let no man by any means 
be offended. Who may say to the Lord, * What 
doest thou ? ' I can say from my heart, though what 
is come upon us is very dreadful and amazing, yet I 
consent unto the will of God, that it is good. Doth 
not the goldsmith cast his metal into the furnace ? and 
you, husbandmen, do you not cause the flail to pass 
over your grain, not that you hate your wheat, but that 
you desire pure bread ? 

You know, that nine years since, I was in a desolate 
condition ; without father, without mother, without 
wife, without children. But, what a father, and 
mother, and wife, have been bestowed upon me, and 
are still continued, though my children are removed ! 
and above all, though I cannot deny but that it pierceth 
my very heart, to call to remembrance the voices of 
my dear children, calling father, father! — a voice 
now not heard — ^yet I bless God, it doth far more 
soundly refresh and rejoice me, to hear the Lord 
continually calling unto me, *My son, my son, despise 
not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art 
corrected of him.' And blessed be God, that doth 
not despise the affliction of the afflicted, nor hide His 
face from him. It was the consideration, that God 
had sanctified and glorified himself, by striking a holy 
awe and dread of his majesty into the hearts of his 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 231 

people, that made Aaron hold his peace ; and if the 
Lord will glorify himself by my family, by these awful 
strokes upon me, quickening parents unto their duty, 
and awakening their children to seek after the Lord, I 
shall desire to be content, thdugh my name be cut off. 
And I beseech you, be earnest with the Lord for us, 
that he would keep us from sinning against him, and 
that he would teach us to sanctify his name ; and 
though our branches have forsaken us, yet that He, 
who hath promised to be with his children in six 
troubles, and in seven, would not forsake us. My 
heart truly would be consumed, and would even die 
within me, but that the good will of Him who dwelt in 
the burning bush, and his good word of promise, are 
my trust and stay." 



232 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



JAMES HAY BEATTIE. 

Extracts from the " Life and Character of James Hay Beattie," by his father, 



" November 28, 1790. — I intend to write a short 
account of the life, education and character of my son, 
now deceased. It will innocently, and perhaps not 
unprofitably, amuse some hours of this melancholy 
season, when my mind can settle on nothing else. In 
order to convey a favorable notion of the person of 
whom I speak, I have nothing to do but to tell the 
simple truth. 

To parents, and other near relations, infancy is very 
interesting; but can hardly supply any thing of narra- 
tive. My son's was in no respect remarkable, unless 
perhaps for a mildness and docility of nature, which 
adhered to him through life. I do not remember, 
that I ever had occasion to reprove him above three 
or four times ; bodily chastisement he never ex- 
perienced at all. It would indeed have been most 
unreasonable to apply this mode of discipline to one, 
whose supreme concern it ever was to know his duty, 
and to do it. 

The first rules of morality I taught him were, to 
speak truth, and keep a secret ; and I never found 
that in a single instance he transgressed either. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 233 

The doctrines of religion I wished to impress on his 
mind, as soon as it might be prepared to receive 
them ; but I did not see the propriety of making him 
commit to memory theological sentences, or any sen- 
tences, which it was not possible for him to understand. 
And I was desirous to make a trial how far his own 
reason would go in tracing out, with a little direction, 
the great and first principle of all religion, the being of 
God. 

In general company, indeed, he was (though not 
awkward) modest to a degree that bordered on bash- 
fulness ; and so silent, that some people would have 
thought him inattentive. But nothing escaped his 
observation ; though what he had observed he never 
applied to any improper purpose. And I have known, 
not any other person of his, and very few persons 
of any age, who with so penetrating an eye discerned 
the characters of men. I, who knew his opinions 
on all subjects, do not remember any instance of his 
being in this respect mistaken. Yet so careful was 
he to avoid giving offence, that none but a few of 
his most intimate friends knew that he had such a 
talent. 

In the end of June, 1790, a cough made its appear- 
ance ; and it was then I began to lose hopes of his 
recovery, as I have reason to think he also did ; he 
saw death approaching, and met it with his usual 
calmness and resignation. ' How pleasant a medicine 
is Christianity!' he said one evening, while he was 
expecting the physician, whom he had sent for, in the 
belief that he was just going to expire. Sometimes he 
. would endeavor to reconcile my mind to the thought 



234 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

of parting with him ; but, for fear of giving me pain, 
spoke seldom and sparingly on that subject. His 
composure he retained, as well as the full use of his 
rational faculties, to the last ; nor did his wit and 
humor forsake him, till he was no longer able to smile, 
or even to speak, except in a whisper. 

One day, long before the little incident last men- 
tioned, when I was sitting by him, soon after our 
second return from sea, he began to speak in very 
affectionate terms, as he often did, of what he called 
my goodness to him. I begged him to drop that 
subject ; and was proceeding to tell him, that I had 
never done any thing for him but what duty required 
and inclination prompted ; and that, for the little I had 
done, his filial piety and other virtues were to me 
more than a sufficient recompense, — when he inter- 
rupted me, (which he was not apt to do,) and, starting 
up, with inexpressible fervor and solemnity, implored 
the blessing of God upon me. His look, at that 
moment, though I shall never forget it, I can describe 
in no other way than by saying, that it seemed to have 
in it something more than human, and what I may, 
not very improperly perhaps, call angelic. Seeing me 
agitated, he expressed concern at what he had done, 
and said that, whatever might be in his mind, he would 
not any more put my feelings to so severe a trial. 
Sometimes, however, warm sentiments of gratitude 
would break from him ; and those were the only 
occasions on which, during the whole course of his 
illness, he was observed to shed tears, till the day 
before his death, when he desired to see his brother, 
gave him his blessing, wept over him, and bade him 
farewell. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 235 

As his life drew towards a close, his pains abated 
considerably, and he passed a good deal of time in 
sleep. When I asked him whether his dreams were 
distressing, he said, * No ; for he sometimes dreamed 
of walking with me, which was an idea peculiarly 
soothing to his mind.' 

At seven in the morning of the nineteenth of No- 
vember, 1790, he said his throat was dry, and desired 
a draught to be given him. Mr. Wilson stept to the 
table to fetch it : but before he got back to the bed- 
side, the last breath was emitted, without a groan, or 
even a sigh. 

1 have lost the pleasantest, and, for the last four or 
five vears of his short life, one of the most instructive 
companions, that ever man was delighted with.* But, 
* the Lord gave ; the Lord hath taken away ; blessed 
be the name of the Lord.' I adore the Author of all 
good, who gave him grace to lead such a life, and die 
such a death, as makes it impossible for a Christian to 
doubt of his having entered upon the inheritance of a 
happy immortality.'' 

* The loss of this, and soon after, of another, and his only 
surviving son, Montagu, deeply affected the mind of Dr. Beattie. 
He bore indeed these great trials with an exemplary piety; but 
they weighed upon his spirits, and even produced a temporary 
loss of memory respecting them. His accomplished biographer. 
Sir William Forbes, relates the following most touching incident, 
concerning the younger son : ** Many times his father could not 
recollect what had become of him; and, after searching in every 
room of the house, he would say to his niece, ' You may think 
it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he 
is.'" — Life of Dr. Beattie^ vol. iii. 



236 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



BEEEAVED PARENTS CONSOLED. 

"The springs of comfort opened in the Gospel ; " extracted from an affection- 
ate address, by John Thornton. 

Reader, do you lament a son or a daughter torn 
from your tender embrace ? Have immediate re- 
course to the volume of inspiration. There you will 
not fail to find topics of the deepest interest, and 
themes of potent efficacy to assuage your pain and 
revive your spirit. 

You look with intense interest on the remains of 
ithat dear child, reposing in the coffin, or you fondly 
fcall up its image when those remains rest in the silent 
grave. But are you so enamored of the casket as to 
forget the precious jewel ? Does the frail tenement of 
clay so engross your thoughts as to render you un- 
mindful of the now emancipated and blessed inhabi- 
tant? The spark of intelligence, which animated 
your beloved child, will continue to burn and shine 
when the natural sun shall be extinguished. In the 
world of spirits every injurious bar, every chilling 
blast, every cause of distraction or discouragement, 
will be entirely removed. There the immortal mind 
will unfold and exert its noble faculties with a freedom 
and delight unknown to the boldest and the brightest 
genius on earth. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 237 

That such as die in childhood are admitted into the 
regions of immortal glory, is a point so clear, as 
scarcely to require an argument. " It is not the will 
of your heavenly Father, that one of these little ones 
should perish." This is the language of the com- 
passionate Saviour, referring to the universal Father, 
w^hose tender mercies are over all his works. They 
are the words of Him, who said, '•' Suffer the little 
children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven.*' The doctrine he 
has here taught us is replete with heavenly consolation. 
We need only look to Christ with a steady eye, and 
contemplate the excellency of his character, the faith- 
fulness of his truth, and the riches of his mercy, to 
find a tranquillity, which is above all price. 



238 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



TO A DYING INFANT. 

Sleep, little baby ! sleep ! 

Not in the cradle bed, 
Not on thy mother's breast 
Henceforth shall be thy rest. 

But with the quiet dead. 

I've seen thee in thy beauty, 
A thing all health and glee ; 

But never then wert thou 

So beautiful as now. 

Darling ! thou seem'st to me. 

Mount up, immortal essence ! 

Young spirit ! haste, depart ; — 
And is this death ! — dread thing ! 
If such thy visiting. 

How beautiful thou art ! 

Oh ! I could gaze for ever 

Upon that waxen face ; 
So passionless ! so pure ! 
The little shrine was sure 

An angel's dwelling place. 

God took thee in his mercy, 
A lamb untask'd, untried ; 

He fought the fight for thee. 

He won the victory, 
And thou art sanctified ! 



I 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 239 

I look around, and see 

The evil ways of men ; 
And lo ! beloved child ! 
I *m more than reconciled 

To thy departure then. 

Now, like a dew-drop shrined 

Within a crystal stone. 
Thou 'rt safe in heaven, my dove ! 
Safe with the source of love, 

The Everlasting One. 



240 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



EXAMPLES OF SUFFERING. 

Motives to resignation may be drawn from the spirit 
and conduct of good men placed in similar circum- 
stances of trial. Some of God's sincere servants have 
lost their children under avi^fully severe circumstances, 
and yet have meekly bowed to the stroke-of the divine 
hand. A more severe calamity, a more overwhelming 
judgment can hardly be conceived, than that, which 
fell upon Aaron, or Eli, or the venerable patriarch 
Job. Yet were these humbled parents silent and sub- 
missive. No frantic cries, no bitter complaints, no 
fretful murmurs, escaped their lips. Doubtless their 
hearts were pierced with the keenest pangs ; but they 
owned and adored the justice of a righteous God. 
Compare your trial with theirs, and you will see many 
circumstances of alleviation, which you had perhaps 
overlooked. 

Octavia, the sister of the emperor Augustus, was 
said to be greatly distinguished for her virtues and 
accomplishments. But the untimely death of her son 
Marcelius threw her into a state of depression and 
despair, from which she never recovered. The anec- 
dote, recorded by Servius of the effect upon her of 
Virgil's beautiful lines in commemoration of that 
lamented youth, is highly characteristic of a mother's 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 241 

feelings. When the poet, reciting them in her pres- 
ence, came to the name of Marcellus, so artfully- 
supplied to make the close and climax of the passage, 
Octavia fainted away. On her recovery she gave a 
most munificent present to him, who had consecrated 
to her sorrows so noble an effort of his genius. She 
survived the loss twelve years, the whole of which she 
spent in mourning, receiving no consolation from her 
other children, though nobly allied, and the mothers of 
flourishing families, but remained plunged in darkness 
and solitude. Had she possessed the solace and sup- 
port of true religion, her exquisite sensibility would 
have been tempered with patience, and turned into 
the course of active duty. 

The far-famed Cicero lost all self-command, when 
his favorite TuUia was torn from him by the hand of 
death. In vain did his friends labor to assuage his an- 
guish. In vain did they refer him to that philosophy 
w^hich he had so often himself recommended as the best 
guide and comforter of man. He gave himself up to 
the violence of sorrow : and was so infatuated as to 
form the project of erecting a temple to Tullia, and 
worshipping her as a goddess. 

As a contrast to the instances here given, I will 
adduce an example from a better school. How un- 
reasonable and extravagant does the conduct of Octa- 
via appear, compared with that of the Viscountess 
Falkland, when placed in like circumstances. This 
Christian lady lost a son in the blooming spring of life, 
who was just beginning to manifest the most brilliant 
talents and amiable dispositions. She keenly felt the 
rending stroke, and yet kissed the rod in the hand 
16 



242 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

of her heavenly Father. After mourning during the 
day, and by night watering her couch with tears, she 
would check herself, and say, '^ Ah ! this immoderate 
sorrow must be repented of, these tears wept over 
again." Her fear of displeasing God allayed the vio- 
lence of grief. She betook herself to the Bible and to 
the throne of grace ; she listened to the kind counsel 
of her worthy pastor and of faithful friends, and like 
Hannah of old, exchanged gloom and perturbation for 
cheerfulness and serenity. It is true, the fits of ma- 
ternal agony returned again and again, but the same 
divine consolation healed her wounded spirit. She re- 
solved, that her precious time should not be wasted in 
useless regrets. She turned her attention to domestic 
duties, and to the various plans of active benevolence. 
And thus she became an illustrious pattern of self- 
command and self-denial, of submission to God, and 
of love to man. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 243 



LETTER TO WALTER SCOTT ON THE DEATH OF THE 
DUCHESS OF BUCCLEUCH. 



" The following letter was addressed to Sir Walter Scott by the Duke of 
Buccleuch soon after the death of his wife. I present it here," says Mr. Lock- 
hart, in his interesting life of his father-in-law, " because it will give a more 
exact notion of what Scott's relations with his noble patron really were, than 
any other single document, which I could produce. But I am not ashamed to 
confess that I embrace with satisfaction the opportunity of thus offering to the 
readers of the present time a most instructive lesson. They will here see what 
pure and simple virtues and humble piety may be cultivated as the only sources 
of real comfort in this world and consolation in the prospect of futurity, — 
among circles which the giddy and envious mob are apt to regard as intoxicated 
with the pomps and vanities of wealth and rank ; which so many of our popu- 
lar writers represent systematically as sunk in selfish indulgence — as viewing 
all below them with apathy and indiflference — and last, not least, as upholding, 
when they do uphold, the religious institutions of their country, merely because 
they have been taught to believe that their own hereditary privileges and 
possessions derive security from the prevalence of Christian maxims and 
feelings among the mass of the people." 



TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ. 

Bowhill, September 3, 1814. 
My dear Sir : — 

It is not with the view of distressing you with my 
griefs, in order to relieve my own feelings, that I ad- 
dress you at this moment. But knowing your attach- 
ment to myself, and more particularly the real affec- 
tion which you bore to my poor wife, I thought that a 



244 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

few lines from me would be acceptable, both to explain 
the state of my mind at present, and to mention a 
few circumstances connected with that melancholy 
event. 

I am calm and resigned. The blow was so severe 
that it stunned me, and I did not feel that agony of 
mind which might have been expected. I now see the 
full extent of my misfortune ; but that extended view 
of it has come gradually upon me. I am fully aware, 
how imperative it is upon me to exert myself to the 
utmost on account of my children. I must not depress 
their spirits by a display of my own melancholy feel- 
ings. I have many new duties to perform, or rather, 
perhaps, I now feel more pressingly the obligation of 
duties which the unceasing exertions of my poor wife 
rendered less necessary, or induced me to attend to 
with less than sufficient accuracy. I have been taught 
a severe lesson ; it may and ought to be a useful one. 
I feel that my lot, though a hard one, is accompanied 
by many alleviations denied to others. I have a nu- 
merous family, thank God, in health, and profiting, ac- 
cording to their different ages, by the admirable lessons 
they have been taught. My daughter Anne, worthy 
of so excellent a mother, exerts herself to the utmost 
to supply her place, and has displayed a fortitude and 
strength of mind beyond her years, and, as I had fool- 
ishly thought, beyond her powers. I have most kind 
friends, willing and ready to afford me every assist- 
ance. These are my worldly comforts, and they are 
numerous and great. 

Painful as it may be, I cannot reconcile it to myself 
to be totally silent as to the last scene of this cruel 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 245 

tragedy. As she had lived, so she died — an example 
of every noble feeling — of love, attachment, and the 
total want of every thing selfish. Endeavoring to the 
last to conceal her suffering, she evinced a fortitude, a 
resignation, a Chifistian courage, beyond all power of 
description. Her last injunction was to attend to her 
poor people. It was a dreadful but instructive moment. 
I have learned that the most truly heroic spirit may be 
lodged in the tenderest and the gentlest breast. Need 
I tell you that she expired in the full hope and expec- 
tation, nay, in the firmest certainty of passing to a 
better world, through a steady reliance on her Saviour? 
If ever there was a proof of the efficacy of our religion 
in moments of the deepest affliction, and in the hour 
of death, it was exemplified in her conduct. But I will 
no longer dwell upon a subject which must be painful 
to you. Knowing her sincere friendship for you, I 
have thought it would give you pleasure, though a 
melancholy one, to hear from me that her last mo- 
ments were such as to be envied by every lover of 
virtue, piety, and genuine religion. 
Yours very sincerely, 

BUCCLEUCH, &;c. 



246 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



A LETTER ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE 
DAUGHTER. 



[The following letter was written by Dugal Buchannan,* an obscure peasant, 
who lived in the Highlands of Scotland, to a respectable citizen of Edinburgh, 
upon hearing of the death of one of his daughters, who was deservedly dear to 
himself and his family. 

We select only a few passages of this letter. The elevated and pious senti- 
ments it expresses will be found an ample apology for the plainness of its 
style] 



TO MR. H . 

Dear Sir : — 
I RECEIVED a letter from Mr. T. acquainting me with 
the death of your daughter, Jane. How it affected me, 

* The author of this letter, during a visit he once paid to 
the city of Edinburgh, went upon business into the house of a 
gentleman, in whose parlor he saw a bust of Shakspeare, in 
alto relievo, with the following lines inscribed under it : 

" The cloud- capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve, 
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
Leave not a wreck behind." 

The gentleman, perceiving Mr. Buchannan's eyes attracted 
by these lines, asked him, if he had ever read any thing equal 
to them in sublimity — ' Yes, I have,' said Mr. B., * the follow- 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 247 

I cannot so well describe as Mr. T. has done. What 
an alleviating circumstance is it in your trial, that you 
have no reason to mourn as those who have no hope. 
Imagine, then, you hear your dear departed child adopt- 
ing the language of her Redeemer, and saying, " If 
ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto 
the Father." But how backward are our hearts to this 
duty of rejoicing ! Our passions often get the better of 
our understanding as well as our faith ; and our memo- 
ries, which are treacherous enough on other occasions, 
are ever faithful here ; and by cruelly mustering up all 
the amiable qualities of our departed friends in a long 
succession, open our wounds to bleed afresh. Nay, 
our imagination is set at work, and stuffs up their 
empty garments in their former shape, when we miss 
them at bed or board. It is truly surprising, that when 
our understandings and judgments are fully convinced 
of the equity of God's ways, and that his whole paths 
are not only truth but mercy to such as fear him, that 
it has so little influence in silencing the inward mur- 
murs of our souls. Instead therefore of poring over 
our wounds, and refusing to be comforted, we should 
endeavor to acquire the blessed art of letting our faith 
trace out our friends in the regions of bliss and im- 
mortality ; where, to use Milton's words, " they walk 
with God — high in salvation, and the climes of bliss.'' 

iDg passage in the book of Revelations is much more sublime 
— '* And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, 
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there 
was found no place for them." ' (Rev. xx. Jl.) * You are 
right,' said the gentleman, ' I never saw the sublimity of that 
passage before.' 



248 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

Our Lord once entered into Jerusalem with a grand 
retinue, and he had a demand for an ass to ride upon, 
that he might fulfil an ancient prophecy concerning 
himself. A messenger was despatched for the ass ; 
and if the owner refused him, he had positive orders to 
tell him, that " the Lord had need of him." If your 
heart complains that your child was too soon loosed 
from you, saying, why was my dear child so suddenly 
snatched from me, in the bloom of youth, when I ex- 
pected she should be the comfort of my old age, and 
soothe my pains and distress ? Why, the same answer 
stands on record for you, " the Lord hath need of 
her." He had need of more virgins in his train, and 
your dear child was pitched upon. Therefore rejoice 
in her honor and happiness. Our Lord hath gone to 
heaven to prepare mansions for his people, and he 
sends his spirit to prepare his people for their man- 
sions; that they may be fit to act agreeably to the 
great end of their calling, and to fill their thrones to 
the honor of that God, who hath called them to glory 
and honor. He then crowns them with endless hap- 
piness. Some have a longer time of probation than 
others. The great dresser of God's vineyard knows 
best when to transplant his fruit-bearing trees. We 
ought, therefore, always to acquiesce in his wisdom. 
And why should you or Mrs. H. who rejoiced at her 
first birth, mourn at her being admitted into the num- 
ber of the spirits of the just made perfect, when it is 
certain that many who rejoiced with you at her birth, 
hailed her arrival on the coasts of bliss. Among those 
who rejoiced with you at her first birth, and saluted 
her on the heavenly, we may safely mention Mr. and 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 249 

Mrs. P. and others of your pious relations and neigh- 
bors, who have got crowns on their heads, and palms 
in their hands, since her first birth. But I see that 
this subject would lead me beyond the bounds of a 
letter. May the Lord bless your remaining children, 
and preserve them to be the comfort of your age ; 
and form them to be vessels of honor, fit for the 
Master's use, I have only to add, that from my very 
soul I sympathize with you, and the rest of your dear 
family, in your loss, which is her gain and glory. 
♦ Yours, 

D. BUCHANNAN. 



250 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



TO H- 



ON THE DEATH OP A YOUNG CHILD. 

Sweet child ! that wasted form, 

That pale and mournful brow, 
O'er which thy long, dark tresses 

In shadowy beauty flow — 
That eye, whence soul is darting 

With such strange brilliancy, 
Tell us thou art departing — 

This world is not for thee. 

No ! not for thee is woven 

That wreath of joy and wo, 
That crown of thorns and flowers 

Which all must wear below. 
We bend in anguish o'er thee, 

Yet feel that thou art blest, 
Loved one ! so early summoned 

To enter into rest. 

Soon shall thy bright young spirit 

From earth's cold chains be free, 
Soon shalt thou meet that Saviour 

Who gave himself for thee. 
Soon shalt thou be rejoicing, 

Unsullied as thou art, 
In the blest vision promised 

Unto the pure in heart. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 251 

Yes ! thou art going home, 

Our Father's face to see 
In perfect bliss and glory j 

But we, oh ! where are we ! 
While that celestial country 

Thick clouds and darkness hide, 
In a strange land of exile, 

Still, still must we abide. 

Father of our spirits, 

We can but look to thee ! 
Though chastened, not forsaken, 

Shall we, thy children be. 
We take the cup of sorrow, 

As did thy blessed son. 
Teach us to say with Jesus, 

** Thy will, not ours, be done,** 



252 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



RELIGIOUS CONSOLATION. 



[From a discourse by the Rev. B. Morehead, preached during the preva- 
lence of a fatal epidemic in Edinburgh, and particularly among the young 
children of his flock.] 

" In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and great mourning j Rachel 
weeping for her children." 



To A PARENT the very circumstances, which render 
his child of little value to others, are the most attrac- 
tive. It is his delight to retire from the serious cares 
and busy occupations of men, into the unanxious 
scenes of childish playfulness ; to repose his thoughts 
upon some countenances, on which the world has left 
no traces of care, and vice has impressed no marks of 
disorder ; and to find within his own house, and sprung 
from his own loins some forms, which recall the image 
of primaeval innocence, and anticipate the society of 
heaven. When these innocent beings are torn from 
us, we suffer a calamity with which a stranger, indeed, 
will imperfectly sympathize, but of which the heart 
knoweth the bitterness ; and the sorrow may only be 
the deeper and more heartfelt, that it must be dis- 
guised and smothered from an unpitying world. 

To such sorrows of the heart it is the office of 
Religion to apply the words of consolation ; and when 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 253 

the first tumults of grief are at an end, to inspire the , 
soul of the mourner with loftier sentiments. She 
suggests, that in the kingdom of God there is no los3 
of existence ; that the hand of infinite wisdom changes, 
indeed, the sphere of action, in which the rational soul 
is destined to move, but never deprives him of the 
being which the hand of beneficence bestowed. She 
points to a higher world, in which the inhabitants are 
as little children ; and she hesitates not to affirm that 
the soul of infant innocence finds its way to that 
region of purity, the air of which it seemed to breathe 
while yet below. She speaks here with a voice of 
confidence, which may sometimes fail to be inspired 
even from the contemplation of a long life spent in the 
practice of virtue. The best men have contracted 
many failings in the course of their earthly trial ; and 
when we commit their bodies to the dust, while Re- , 
ligion calls upon us to look forward to their destiny 
with holy hope, she yet permits some foreboding fears 
to cloud the brightness of the prospect. In less favor- 
able cases, all that we can do is to withdraw our minds 
from the vices of the departed, and rather to fix them 
with apprehension and purposes of amendment upon 
our own ; to raise our thoughts at the same time to the 
perfect goodness of God, who seeth the secret springs 
of the heart, and judgeth not as man judges; which 
will forgive whatever can be forgiven, and which hath 
no pleasure in the death of the wicked. 

But when we follow to the grave the body of untried 
innocence, we at the same time restore to the Father 
of spirits the soul, which he gave, yet unpolluted by 
the vices of time, and still an inmate meet for eternity. 



254- AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

^ When the tears of nature are over, faith may look up 
with an unclouded eye,. and see the Saviour, whose 
descent upon earth cost so many tears to the mothers 
of Bethlehem, now speaking comfort to the mothers of 
his people, and telling them, that he, who here below 
*' suffered little children to come unto him," still de- 
lights to throw around them the arms of his love, 
when, like him, they have burst the bonds of mor- 
tality. 

We are well aware of the influence of the world. 
We know how strongly it engages our thoughts, and 
debases the springs of our actions : and how important 
it is to have the spirit of our minds renewed, and the 
rust, which gathers over them cleared away. One of 
the principal advantages, perhaps, which arises from 
the possession of children, is, that in their society the 
simplicity of our nature is constantly recalled to our 
view; and that when we return from the cares and 
thoughts of the world into our domestic circle, we 
behold beings, whose happiness springs from no false 
estimates of worldly good, but from the benevolent 
instincts of nature. The same moral advantage is 
often derived in a yet greater degree from the memory 
of those children, that have left us. Their simple 
characters dwell upon our minds with a deeper im- 
pression. Their least actions return to our thoughts 
with more force than if we had it still in our power to 
witness them,; and they return to us clothed in that 
saintly garb which belongs to the possessors of a 
higher existence. We feel, that there is now a link 
connecting us with a purer and a abetter scene of 
being ; that a part of ourselves has gone before us into 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 255 

the bosom of God ; and that the same happy creature, 
which here on earth showed us the simple sources 
from which happiness springs, now hovers over us, 
and scatters from its wings the graces and beatitudes 
of eternity. 

To you, then, who have suffered the visitations of 
Providence, Religion unfolds the sources of con- 
solation and improvement. She calls upon you to 
give the children, of whom you have^ been deprived, 
into the hands of your and their Father, and when 
the first pangs of affliction are over, to lift up your 
thoughts with that faith towards Him, which may at 
least enable you to meet them in his presence forever. 
Yet while she calls you not to mourn, she does not 
ask you to forget. You should remember whatever 
may contribute to your purity and virtue. You should 
sometimes meditate with holy emotion on those angel 
forms, which are gone before you ; and, amidst the 
temptations of the world, you should call to mind, 
that their eyes are even now impending over you, and 
feel the additional link, which binds you to the higher 
distinction of your being. 



256 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 



TO WILLIAM. 

It seems but yesterday, my love, thy little heart beat high ; 
And I had almost scorned the voice that told me thou must die. 
I saw thee move with active bound ; with spirits wild and free. 
And infant grace and beauty gave their glorious charm to thee. 

Far on the sunny plains, I saw thy sparkling footsteps fly, 
Firm, light, and graceful as the bird that cleaves the morning 

sky J 
And often as the playful breeze waved back thy shining hair. 
Thy cheek displayed the red rose tint that health had piinted 

there. 

And then in all my thoughtfulness, I could not but rejoice. 
To hear upon the morning wind the music of thy voice, — 
Now echoing in the rapturous laugh, now sad almost to tears ; 
'Twas like the sounds I used to hear, in old and happier years ! 

Thanks for that memory to thee, my little lovely boy ; 

That memory of my youthful bliss, which time would fain de- 
stroy. 

I listened, as the mariner suspends the out-bound oar. 

To taste the farewell gale that breathes from off his native 
shore. 

» 
So gentle in thy loveliness I alas, how could it be. 
That death would not forbear to lay his icy hand on thee ? 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 257 

Nor spare thee yet a little while, in childhood's opening bloom, 
While many a sad and weary soul was longing for the tomb ? 

Was mine a happiness too pure for erring man to know ? 
Or why did heaven so soon destroy my paradise below ? 
Enchanting as the vision was, it sunk away as soon, 
As when, in quick and cold eclipse, the sun grows dark at 
noon. 

I loved thee, and my heart was blest; but ere that day was spent, 
I saw thy light and graceful form in drooping illness bent. 
And shuddered as I cast a look upon thy fainting head ; 
The mournful cloud was gathering there, and life was almost fled 

Days passed ; and soon the seal of death made known that hope 

was vain ; 
I knew the swiftly- wasting lamp would never burn again ; 
The cheek was pale ; the snowy lips were gently thrown apart ; 
And life in every passing breath seemed gushing from the 

heart. 

I knew those marble lips to mine should never more be press'd, 
And floods of feeling, undefined, rolled wildly o'er my breast; 
Low, stifled sounds, and dusky forms seem'd moving in the 

gloom. 
As if death's dark array were come to bear thee to the tomb. 

And when I could not keep the tear from gathering in my eye, 
Thy little hand pressed gently mine in token of reply ; 
To ask one more exchange of love, thy look was upward cast, 
And in that long and burning kiss, thy happy spirit pass'd ! 

I never trusted to have lived, to bid farewell to thee. 
And almost said in agony, it ought not so to be ; 
I hoped that thou, within the grave, my weary head should lay, 
And live, beloved, when I was gone, for many a happy day. 
17 



258 AN OFFERING OF SYMPATHY 

With trembling hand I vainly tried thy dying eyes to close ; 
And almost envied, in that hour, thy calm and deep repose ; 
For I was left in loneliness, with pain and grief oppress'd, 
And thou wast with the sainted, where the weary are at rest. 

Yes ! I am sad and weary now ; but let me not repine. 
Because a spirit, loved so well, is earlier blessed than mine ; 
My faith may darken as it will, I shall not much deplore. 
Since thou art where the ills of life can never reach thee more. 



TO THE AFFLICTED. 259 



CONCLUSION. 

" I KNOW that early death is a blessing to. those 
who are prepared to go ; it is a blessing to be taken 
early, while unworn with anxiety and sorrow, while 
the affections are unchilled by disappointment, and 
before the heart has become partially hardened, as 
the best hearts may, by 'the rough collisions of the 
troubling and the troubled world. It is hard to sur- 
render those who are dear to us, but it is not hard to 
submit ourselves to the disposal of a God of love. It is 
in these afflictions that the foundations of an immortal 
life are laid ; the strait and narrow path is the nearest 

one to a heavenly home 'In the world,' said 

Jesus Christ, ' ye shall have tribulation ; but be of good 
cheer; I have overcome the world.' Remember the 
strength and sympathy which he offers. Remember 
his promise, — 'To him that overcometh, I will give 
the morning star.' 

* The star of the unconquered will. 

He rises in my breast, 
Serene, and resolute, and still, 

And calm, and self-possessed. 
0, faint not in a world like this, 

And thou shalt know ere long, 
Know how sublime a thing it is, 

To suffer and be strong.' " 



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